If I Never Lived
by Tarlyn
Summary: Sequel to 'If I Wasn't There'. People are dropping dead, things are happening to Slytherins and houses alike, and morbid memories are being brought back into light by dad. Max can't escape them because they've already happened. If only she never lived...
1. This Place is Haunted

**Gah, the first chapter of this… Hey, if you haven't read the first part, **_**If I Wasn't There**_**, go read that first or else this is going to be really complicated. Review the first part if you've forgotten anything. And I just saw the last episode of Season 4 of **_**Code Lyoko **_**so I'm kind of sad because it ended and yet I can't stop smiling because it's so happy…weird, huh? **

_And so the story continues…_

The wind whipped around me and I shivered, pulling my coat around me tighter. I stood there quietly, in between the large shrubbery, watching. On the other side of the swirling metal gates, a thick, dark mist concealed us and blew in the occasional leaf. It was the first sign of autumn. I couldn't wait. It meant that I could go to school again. After all, after you've lived pretty much your entire life being taught by your father who's a murderer for a living, you'd probably enjoy magical boarding school. But that's just me.

"We get to go to school!" said Cissy in a sing song voice with Luce in tow. Bella followed them, laughing. Sev was apparently still cooped up in his room with his cauldron and potions book. I smiled at them.

"Yeah, just like last year," I said. "Except Cissy'll be old enough to attend school parties on her own and Lionel's not going to be there anymore."

"And," added Luce excitedly, "since we're in Fifth year, we have a chance of becoming Prefects!" I gawked. I had completely forgotten.

"Really? Who's going to be a Prefect this year?"

"Well, we know Lily is," said Bella thoughtfully. "We just received her letter. I wonder if your father will let her go… And so is this Remus Lupin."

"He's one of the Marauders," I said in disgust. Luce wrinkled his nose. "Anyways, I don't think dad will be too happy with letting any of them out. Let's break them out." They looked at me as if I were insane, which I probably was. "What?"

"It's like stealing something from your dad, right?" asked Luce uncertainly. I shrugged.

"So? He'll understand. If he catches us, I'll just say tell him that it's for the greater good." The just stared. "What?"

"Are you insane? The greater good is a motto for those against your father!" I snorted.

"I'm a manipulative little girl," I said sweetly. "Come on…I haven't had any real fun in months." They reluctantly followed me to the dungeons with some food and spell books from the library. It was dark and creepy there, two things I rather enjoyed. Small candles threw flicking shadows everywhere. Speaking of shadows…Fang could have shadow traveled all this time. I wonder why he didn't. Or perhaps he hadn't thought of it.

"Here," murmured Bella, handing Lily some bread. She nibbled it for moment before downing it as fast as she could. I handed her a bottle of water too. The prisoners ate as much as they could without puking which was about, let's see: five dishes of crème brule, two loaves of raisin bread, three bottles of Butterbeer, (A/N: Butterbeer tastes like liquid butterscotch with this sweet foamy froth on top. The only problem? It's cold, not warm) several packs of cauldron cakes and pumpkin pasties. So amusing. (Sarcasm…) After they finished, I turned to Fang.

"Can't you shadow travel?" He looked a bit scornful.

"If I could, I wouldn't be here right now. There's some spell on this cage that won't let me." _Cages_. How had we escaped from them when we were little? Oh, that's right. We didn't. Rather, people had taken us out. Now, we had no idea how to break free. That is, if we didn't have wands and a spell book.

"Hm…which one sounds better? The one that explodes or the one that unlocks doors?" asked Luce, stroking his nonexistent beard and musing over the spell book.

"Do you really have to ask?" I pointed my wand at the door. "_Bombarda Maxima!"_ BOOM! Ouch, my eardrums.

"I see…," he said slowly. "Um, okay. Wasn't that sort of loud?" I cussed under my breath. Ever since Hogwarts, I was really losing my ninja skills. "Come on," I hissed. They all followed me quickly to a large, old fountain which was set into the wall. Without a second thought, I cast _Bublio_ on all of us and dove into the crisp, cold water. This was like the secret passageways of Hogwarts, only wetter. I used my large wings to propel myself through the waters. My siblings, great swimmers through training, were able to follow me easily. Fang tried (and failed) to copy my underwater flying while being hit repeatedly by stray bursts of water. Lily and James were just being tossed around by the waters currents. Pitiful.

Eventually, we emerged, cold and wet, from a moonlit lake near the forest by our Quidditch Pitch. By now, it was already nightfall. Stars littered the sky, looking like glittering diamonds. It was then and only then did I understand the rashness of what I had done.

"I shouldn't have done that," I murmured too soft for anyone else to hear. I turned to Fang. "Take Lily, James, and me out of here through shadow traveling. I'll come back."

"Why do you need to…?"

"It's monitored closely. Dad gets notices whenever someone teleports in and out of the place but it only detects those who are doing the magic," I explained. "And if he gets too many notices, he'll suspect something's going on." He nodded and took hold of me as well and Lily and James. An electric current ran through me, which I ignored. We ran into a shadow and arrived at the Leaky Cauldron. It was practically empty except for Tom, the man at the bar and a few lone customers. "Stay hidden," I warned. "The public doesn't know that you're missing yet. Your parents, for whatever reason, have been keeping quiet on your disappearances, insisting that all of you are safe at home." Whatever reason, my little pony. (Contrary to popular belief, I do _NOT_ have a room with a My Little Pony theme, _nor_ do I play with them when no one's looking. See link on Tarlyn's profile.) Dad had threatened them to keep quiet or else their parents as well as the rest of the world would pay. Sounds fun, huh?

Fang and the others nodded and disappeared through a shadow. I quickly ran into another one, arriving home. Bella, Luce, and Cissy were still there. They smiled nervously at me.

"Max…we have to go," said Luce. "I don't want to get caught." I just looked at him. Okay, let's get this straight: we sneak into the dungeons in broad daylight, explode a door with enough force to blast a good sized hole in bulletproof glass, all the while not remembering that we're supposed to keep quiet, dive into a water way, perilously swim blindly from a fountain with unnaturally strong currents all the way to the lake outside next to the pitch where Lionel was practicing his Quidditch skills so he could infiltrate Quidditch teams and only now, now that we were finished, were they afraid of getting caught. I knew there was something wrong with them.

"Then go," I said. "We've got to pack up for school, don't we? Hey, we're going shopping tomorrow, aren't we?" Cissy nodded. "Great. Let's go." We silently scaled up the walls to our respective rooms. I hopped into mine and flopped down on my bed. The seriousness of what I had done was bugging me immensely. I had just set prisoners free. Oh well. There's a first for everything. I rolled over.

Why did dad want those three in particular anyways? Lily was a mudblood, James was a pureblood, and I had no idea what Fang was. A mutant? True…but why would dad want him in particular? He already had me and the rest of the Ride children. And, you know, Zohra, CaraLena, Dave, etc… There was even Dylan, for the Hell of it. My boyfriend. And they were all going to get hurt. Fang was the only mutant who wouldn't follow me like I was a goddess. And that's why dad wanted him. Dad must have seen what I had seen: the raw potential in him. And in Lily. Adrian must have told him about James. I wouldn't deny it; they were pretty strong.

If dad wanted them, he'd get them, either through me or by force. And in the end, they'd all get hurt. Damn.

I sat up so fast my head spun. Winter and Husky lifted their heads up in surprise. They had started sleeping in my room again. I had to protect them. But how? The Rides would just tell me that my dad's just who he is. CaraLena would brush it off. Zohra probably wouldn't care. Tarlyn would laugh it off. And Dave would spew out some geeky verbal diagram to explain how he wouldn't get hurt. Damn geeks. They wouldn't let me save them even if their lives depended on it. Which it did, as of now. All things considered, there was only one person I could save. And it wasn't me.

* * *

"Do you want to get some ice cream, Sev?" I asked convincingly to my brother. He looked away from me, down cast. "Don't make me manipulate and answer out of you," I warned. Three, no, four months later, Severus was still moping over Lily. Oh dear…

"You'll have to get over it eventually," said Bella, tapping at the hard cherry sauce shell on her pistachio ice cream. Her long nail eventually broke through and she poked a straw through the little hole, sucking away at her green milkshake in a cone. Cissy looked at her strangely. Bella shrugged.

"Ew, Bells," said Luce, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "It looks like puke." Bella glared at him.

"You look like puke."

"Hey!" I laughed at them and their immaturity. I love siblings.

"Cut it out, guys. Come on, Sev. Any flavor, as many scoops as you want, any topping, any type of cone, any type of shell, as much as you want. I'm paying." I grinned at him and he sort of smiled back. I've never known him to refuse ice cream when it's free. Come to think of it, I don't think anyone, except for maybe Christiana Rowle and her posse, has ever refused ice cream when it's free and it's just because Christiana's too obsessed about her weight.

"Okay. Two scoops, cookies and cream and cookie dough, chocolate sprinkles, caramel shell, chocolate and sprinkles dipped waffle cone." I grinned again. There were a few things strikingly similar about me and Sev and our choice of ice cream was one of them. The other, obviously, our love of potions. But I've already told you that story so…moving on…

"That'll be…ten Sickles," said the boy at the counter. He was about Laurence's age, give or take a year or two, and his face was covered in pimples. He seemed to be very bored indeed. How about we make this less boring?

"You decide to give it to us for free," I said calmly and sweetly, my manipulation dripping like honey. I utterly beamed at him and he obeyed, handing it over to Severus. It was a pity his boss wasn't here; we could have had even more fun.

"You shouldn't use manipulation on things like this," said Sev ruefully. I smirked.

"Well, honestly, you probably feel more loved knowing that I got that by the means of doing something terribly illegal. I mean, I'm loaded with money so it's not like a few Sickles will put me in the national debt so it's not a money issue."

"It's a manipulative issue," he said, smiling. "Of course, Max and her funny ways of showing how much she loves us." I beamed.

"Why not?" He rolled his eyes and returned to his ice cream. "So, are you finally not in a bad mood anymore?" He sighed.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I would have never thought that Lily…and James…" He trailed off.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I never thought that they'd last. For crying out loud, I didn't think that it would have ever happened at all, period." I shrugged. "Things happen, I guess."

"Say, isn't that Dylan?" I spun around so fast I toppled over. Sev chuckled and I glared at him menacingly. "What? He's here, isn't he?"

"Yes, I know that," I said irritably. "But you didn't have to scare me like that." He laughed.

"I wasn't trying to scare you. You just got…scared." I glared at him again. "What?" I scoffed and went over to talk to my soon to be ex-boyfriend.

"Dylan?"

"Oh, hey Max." He smiled at me in his oh-so-sweet way when he tried to tell me that everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't. Not this time.

"Can I talk to you about something? It's sort of serious." He nodded. I crossed my fingers. Lie. That's all I had to do. Lie to him and set him free. Of course, I could always just manipulate him and get it over with… No, I was brave enough for this. I hope.

"Sure, Max. Anything."

"I…I think that things aren't working out the way I wanted," I said slowly at last. His smile was slowly turning to a look of horror and confusion. Now, the same line that everyone gives: "It's not you, it's me." Now, the line that most people don't give: "And, it's not a matter of 'I think we should just be friends' but a matter of 'I don't think we should be seeing each other at all', period."

"Why, Max?" he asked, sounding anguished. I looked away.

"It's just…it's just that things aren't working out, that's all." I looked away from him. It was too hard to look at the hurt in those ice blue eyes of his. "I don't want you to find this out the hard way. I just want you to know that even though I won't be with you anymore, I still care about you. In a way. But I can't be with you, not now, not ever. Please, Dylan, you have to understand."

"If…if that's how it has to be…I won't be bothering you again," he said sadly. Then he turned around and walked out of my life forever. I just sat down on the cobblestone steps and cried. Soon, I felt a comforting hand stroking me.

"It's going to be okay, Max," Bella said quietly. "It's going to be okay." But she was wrong.

"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts, teach us something please," sang Cissy as she skipped down the front stairs of the mansion. Bella and I laughed and Cissy frowned. "What?"

"Nothing," said Bella with a smiled. "It's just so cute. Keep going."

"Whether we be old and bald, or young with scabby knees…"

"You know," said Luce, "I think the only baldy that's ever entered the school is your dad." I glared at him. "Oh, heh heh, sorry."

"Apology accepted. Fifth year, huh? And prefect!" I said, twirling around happily. From the window, I saw dad smile down at me. He had been so proud when I got my letter. I was a child to be proud of, just like he and mum when they went to Hogwarts. Luce smiled in his own sort of bittersweet way. I had been chosen prefect along with someone else and it wasn't Luce, Sev, or even Dylan. In fact, I had no idea who the other one was.

"We better get going," said Bella, tossing the last of her hair spray and curling irons. How she manages to re-curl her seventy eight locks of ebony every morning, get enough sleep, and finish all her homework is a real mystery to me.

* * *

"Okay," chirped Cissy and began singing again. "Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts…"

"Luce, she's your girlfriend. Control her."

"Max, she's your sister. You control her." I glared at him. He glared back. And then we burst into fits of laughter.

"You should have seen you face!" I all but shrieked with laughter. "Oh! I forgot something!" I ran inside quickly with the rest for them yelling at me to come back and explain why my brother and I had just started laughing randomly.

"Lionel!" I yelled. "Lionel!" I collided with him while jumping down the stairs. He caught me before I fell.

"Hey, Max. I had a feeling you wouldn't leave without saying goodbye." I smiled. Last year was the only year that exchanged goodbyes because I was going with him. All the years before that, I would be the last person Lionel said goodbye to before her went to Hogwarts. Now it was my turn.

"Bye, Lionel," I said sadly. "I'll miss you there." He laughed.

"I'll miss you too. We'll see each other winter break, right?" I nodded.

"Right. Bye!" I dashed out again where Cissy, Bella, Luce, and Sev were all impatiently waiting for me.

"What was that for?" asked Bella once we were all packed into the car.

"I had to say goodbye to someone."

"Who? Your dad?" I shook my head.

"No, Lionel." She looked at me strangely. She obviously didn't understand the bond between Lionel and me. But that was okay. I didn't understand it too well either.

* * *

"Aw, look at those little schmucks," cooed Bella. Ickle First years were lined up, waiting to be sorted. Adrian was looked around frantically for signs of her little brother. Jaq looked down; Tarlyn was gone yet again in France. At least we knew where she was.

"Hey, did you miss us?" The twins, Halo and Contessa, slid swiftly into their seats without making a single noise other than what they spoke. Jay and Orin were with them. I grinned.

"Not your Siamese-ness, I didn't," said Luce. "You guys still talk like each other." They laughed.

"No, no, we talk _with_ each other," they said in eerie sync. Cissy shuddered; she still wasn't used to them.

"You guys," Adrian whispered excitedly. "You see that little boy over there, the one with the spiky hair and hazel eyes?"

"You mean James?" asked Orin, confused.

"No, the little one." I glanced over and nearly gawked. There was a perfect miniature replica of James Potter, sans glasses. "That's my brother, Dante."

"Aw," cooed Cissy. "He's so cute!"

"I know," Adrian said proudly.

"…this year, we will be inviting back two resident ghosts who haven't been here in quite a while," announced Dumbdork. Yes, you heard right. Dumbdork. "They won't be house ghosts and frankly, one of them isn't a ghost but a poltergeist but let's all welcomes back Peeves and Feylor!" Everyone clapped politely, the Marauders heartily welcoming back Peeves. Feylor drifted off to the side. Unlike the rest of the ghosts here, Peeves was wearing this little clown outfit and he wasn't just a translucent being. Rather, he wasn't _really_ see-through and he was colorful instead of the typical blue-grey tinting the other ghosts here had. And he had this cheeky little look on his face, reminding me terribly of Peter Pettigrew. I turned to Sev.

"Who's Peeves?" I asked.

"He's an awful poltergeist who plays tricks on us and causes mayhem. I can see why he would like the Marauders," Sev said scornfully. I nodded.

"And what about Feylor?" She was strikingly familiar for whatever reason, as if I had seen her before. She was a typical ghost; misty blue-grey and translucent. She had this look of emotionless arrogance on her face which I had defiantly seen before. Despite her washed out color, I could see that her hair was once a dark color, perhaps black or dark brown. Sev glanced over at her and shrugged.

"Never seen her before. Your guess is as good as mine." I nodded.

"Okay." Bella nudged me.

"Where's pretty-boy Dylan?" she teased. I felt the sadness creeping over me. Bella noticed and frowned. "What? Was it something I said?"

"Dylan and I…we broke up." She looked horrified.

"What? When? How? Why?" I shook my head and turned away from her, facing a point far away.

"I would rather not talk about it. It's a touchy subject."

"You know," said a soft, mystical voice, "it is good to talk about the things that hurt you with others. The more pain you feel, the stronger you become." I turned around quickly and came face to face with a translucent, willowy girl. She held out one graceful hand, her long and willowy fingers extended. Her expression was still flat and unchanged. "I am Feylor." I extended my own hand with a similar grace.

"I'm Max." She nodded slowly.

"Alright then. I really should not be telling you about this one reoccurring problem of mine, but, well…" She trailed off. "There is another new ghost here and from the looks of it, he died only very recently. Say, a year ago. Probably less than half a year. And he is very annoying and dreadfully talkative to a fault. In my day, no one _ever_ spoke so much; it was considered impolite." She scoffed arrogantly and pointed over to a terribly familiar ghastly face of a ghost who was approaching us and we all paled like ghosts, no pun intended.

"Damn, he never gets off our nerves, does he?" groaned Selwyn. I nearly cried. CaraLena took one look at him and looked like she was about to start sobbing.

"Hi guys! Did you miss me?"

"No, no, _absolutely_ not!" the twins all but yelled in their appropriately haughty voice.

"He's back!" wailed Adrian miserably, the loudest I had ever heard her.

"Guess what? I can go through walls and stuff. I can even go through people! But I can't go through other ghosts for whatever reason. I keep crashing into them because I'm so used to just going through them if I really need to." I rubbed the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes in annoyance.

"You know, Eron, you were annoying enough when you were alive."

* * *

"…cannot believe it," muttered the Sixth years along with some of those in Fifth year and Seventh year. "He's still here."

"Here's another ice pack," Nudge said sympathetically, handing me one out of the box of ice packs she was distributing throughout the common rooms. Anyone old enough to have suffered from Eron was getting one and the ones too young to know were switching between handing out ice packs and listening to what the older kids had to say about him. Needless to say, no one had felt any regret when he had died.

"He's coming!" shouted Andre, dashing in to the common room out of breath. We quickly arranged ourselves so that it looked like a typical night in the Slytherin commons. We were postponing the annual talent show until tomorrow night.

"Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi!–"

"Leave," growled Zohra, a package of frozen peas in her hands, poised and ready to throw.

"It won't hurt me!" he said cheerfully. Laurence thudded his head on a pillow.

"It just gets worse and worse, huh?" he asked as some of the other student groaned.

CaraLena flipped out her cell phone. "I've got the Ghostbusters on speed dial. You have five seconds to leave. Five…four…" Eron disappeared instantly out a window.

"Yes!" a Fifth year boy cheered. "He's gone!"

"You know, Nudge," I said, "you're lucky that you never really knew him." She smiled at me.

"I know." A ghost drifted in, one with a dark, impassive face. She looked around.

"I see that you have succeeded in getting rid of him," Feylor said in her mystical voice. I nodded. She simply looked out the window, where Eron had gone out of minutes before and. "It's a pity that he had to be so annoying," she said. "I was hoping for a ghost my age a bit more peaceful."

"Speaking of which, exactly _how_ old are you?" She turned to me, eyed me, and then looked away with no change in expression. "I was fifteen when I died. My fortieth death day is in a few months." She began to drift away when I stopped her.

"Wait, what was your last name?" I asked curiously. She paused.

"I do not think I will bother you with trifles like these," she said stiffly. Wow, first semi-change in emotion.

"Please?" She shook her head.

"You are better off not knowing," she said.

"Aw, come on. What's the worst that can happen?" Feylor turned her head to face me and spoke in a voice so soft that only I could hear.

"You will ponder over it, not paying any attention to the things that you should be noticing."

"Just tell. I won't. Much." She sighed.

"It is Riddle. Feylor Riddle."

* * *

Dad has, err, had, a sister? It was too hard to comprehend. Feylor, had she not died, would have been only a year younger than dad. She couldn't have been his cousin; grandpa was an only child. And she wasn't my mum since mum's name was Aella and Feylor had died too young at any rate. So she had to be his sister, right?

"Thinking about what I said? Did I not warn you beforehand that you would have been better off not knowing?" Feylor's mystical voice sent chills down my spine. They way she talked, she was worse than dad. Not only was it creepy, it was impossible to decipher and figure out the emotions she felt. Worse, I couldn't figure out if she was pissed or not. Oh, goodie.

"You're kind of creepy, you know that?"

"Yes, yes I do. By now, this, err, creepiness, has become a part of me."

"So, are you my aunt?"

"Are you the daughter of my dear brother Tom?" she asked quietly. I nodded. "Then yes, yes I am your aunt."

"Why are you a ghost?"

"Because I am."

"Ha ha. How about giving me a straight answer, hmm?"

"No."

"Why not?" I whined. She turned away quickly, her ghastly hair fluttering lazily after her.

"Because, too much thinking will not do you good in the end," she said, gliding through a wall. I glared at the spot where she had disappeared. She might have been my aunt but she sure was annoying. Even dad wasn't as bad. Then I realized I hadn't asked her how she had died. Maybe it didn't matter. Ha, who am I kidding? Of course it mattered!

I walked around the castle, trying to enlist the assistance of the resident ghosts and avoiding Eron as much as I could, which turned out to be a failure after he had found me. It didn't matter how fast I could run around the place and spin and dodge behind walls to avoid him because he'd just drift through them. That boy's like spicy Mexican food –he keeps coming back at ya.

"And then Fey's like all –"

"Wait. Did you just call her _Fey_?"

"Yeah, why not? I mean, it's basically the same thing and –"

"Shut up!" I yelled. "If you weren't a ghost or if I _were_ a ghost, I'd hit you right now!"

"But _I_ am a ghost," said a soft voice. Feylor Riddle, with her face emotionless as ever, appeared on the scene. She approached him slowly and seductively, getting her lips within an inch of his, before flicking her wrist slightly and punching his lights out. He fell straight through the floor. I let out a low whistle and I thought I saw a flash of satisfaction on her face but it disappeared before I could confirm it. I suddenly had a new respect for her.

"Hey, Feylor, err, aunt Fey–"

"It is Feylor," she said musically. "Or Fey-chan. I feel as if 'aunt' makes me seem old, Max-chan."

"What did you call me?"

"Max-chan. It's Japanese. I would have imagined that Tom had you taught Japanese, no? Very amusing language, it is. Besides, I do enjoy reading anime and manga in the library at night when no one is there to bother me; it has become a favorite pastime of mine." I looked at her strangely. An emotionless ghost who enjoyed anime and manga? Uh…

"Okay then… Feylor? Um, Fey-chan? I forgot to ask you this earlier. How did you die?" She, surprisingly, didn't pause or stiffen or have any reaction whatsoever.

"Funny you should ask such a thing so soon after I have nearly killed a ghost. Strange things we are, ghosts. I do hope he does not remain at this castle any longer. But, alas," she sighed, "once ghosts are ghosts, there is not much that can be done to get rid of them."

"How about calling Ghostbusters?" She scoffed, emotionless as ever which was sort of annoying. What person scoffs unemotionally? Ah, yes. Feylor did.

"Naïve muggles; they could not 'bust' a ghost even with all of their eccentric baubles." She scoffed arrogantly.

"So, how did you die?" I asked, bringing us back to the original subject. She sniffed, still emotionless.

"Tom used me as an experiment." I gawked.

"What?"

"Did I not just tell you? Or have you become deaf? Your father wanted to see if I could stand the pain of having my soul ripped into multiple pieces before he tried that himself. I obviously didn't survive that _marvelous_ attempt. He, on the other hand, managed it, surprisingly enough." She sniffed. "I suppose I was the least bit surprised, to tell you the truth. He's strong, yet weak, very weak." She drifted away like last time but then stopped before she hit the wall. "Max, I should warn you not to dwell over my words; the things I have said have caused some to linger over unimportant things forever. And it did them no good in the end."

* * *

"So."

"So."

"You broke up with Dylan." I flinched. News got around _that_ fast?

"That I did."

"Why?"

"Because I had to."

"Okay, seems fair."

"It should be."

"I forgot; I never had the chance to thank you for breaking me out of that dungeon. So thanks."

"You're welcome. It wasn't easy. How did you guys manage to escape in the end?"

"I shadow traveled around, dropping everyone off. Why?"

"Oh, no, just curious," I said simply. Fang nodded. "How's life?"

"It's been…good," he finished lamely. "Your friend Laurence was made prefect of Seventh year. So was Bethany." I wrinkled my nose.

"I hate Bethany. She's so full of herself." He chuckled.

"I know the feeling; I hate her too. Do you know who the girl prefect of our year is?" I flashed him a confident grin.

"Me. And I don't suppose you know who the guy prefect is, would you?" He looked smug.

"Me." I gawked.

"You're kidding."

"Nope. Your other friend, Willow-Brook–"

"Willy," I corrected automatically.

"Fine, _Willy_ was made Head Girl." I gaped at him.

"Seriously? That's awesome!" He flashed one of his rare grins.

"I know. Second time in my five years here has a Slytherin been made a Head. Her parents must be proud." _Her parents disowned her_, I thought sadly to myself. At least she had Sabrina to be her replacement mother or I wouldn't know how she could survive.

"Second? Who was first?" He shrugged.

"I don't know. Some nerdy guy. With glasses. I've just heard the older kids talk about it. From what I've heard of the rumors circulating, Willy had a crush on him when he was still here. She looked up to him or something, I guess. They said his name was Alec or something." I smirked. That's probably the longest length of time he's spoken.

"Ooh, Willy and Alec sitting in a tree, f-u-c-k-i–"

"Don't you _dare_ finish that, Maximum Ride!" shrieked Willy. "Not if you fear for your life!" Good thing Lionel wasn't here to hear those rumors. He'd be in hysterics. Again. Fang chuckled softly as Willy came around the corner.

"Make a run for the shadows," he whispered lightly and disappeared into one himself. I followed suit and ended up in my dorm where Bella was curling one of her last few strands of hair. There must have been dozens of black corkscrew curls protruding from her head already. It bounced lightly as she let go of it and she smiled, satisfied. She continued curling the last few before catching sight of my reflection in the mirror.

"AIEEEEE!" she shrieked, falling of her chair. I burst into laughter. "Maximum Ride, don't you EVER do that again!" she demanded.

"Okay, okay, Bells, I won't go ninja on you again. Today." I smirked. She glared at me.

"This isn't funny!"

"Yes it is…"

"MAX!"

"Whoa, what did you guys do while we were gone?" The twins both had looks of amusement on their faces.

"Okay, Halo, Contessa, so, Bella's curling her hair and I shadow travel into this room because Willy's pissed off at me for saying that she and Alec should have fu–"

"And?"

"So, I shadow travel into this room and Bella's curling her hair. I'm just watching and then when she's done, she realizes that I've been standing there for about fifteen minutes just watching and then she shrieks, falls off her chair and has a panic attack because she's been paying attention to her hair all this time. How is that not funny?" Halo looked perplexed while Contessa looked bemused.

"You shouldn't have done that," said Halo in her trademark reprimanding voice. "Bella could have burned herself with the curling iron." Contessa just laughed.

"Just because you can't figure out how to use a curling iron without giving yourself level three burns, doesn't mean that no one else can. You watch me curl my hair every week and I've never gotten myself burned, branded, set on fire, etc. Not even once," she said, pulling her thick, red curls into a makeshift ponytail so she could comb it easily. "Max, that must have been _hilarious_. I wish I was here to see it." I grinned.

"Thanks, Tessa." She smiled.

"No problem. Anyways," said she and her sister, resuming their in sync ways again, "I, err, we, were wondering how Effie is. We haven't seen her in so long, you know. Speaking of which, why didn't you help her break free? I mean, you managed to smuggle James, Lily, and your ex out." They flipped their hair over their shoulder and put their hands on their hips in a fake bratty fashion. "Now, really."

"It would have been even harder to sneak her out along with them," I said smoothly. "Their cells were close together but Effie's, if you recall, is down another corridor. We were short on time as it was and we almost didn't make it out."

"So why them and not Effie?" they demanded. "_Our_ little sister's been there _longer_ than they have and you only break _them_ out."

"Effie's not at the top of my father's to-kill list. Actually, she's not on there at all."

"A to-kill list? Your father has a to-kill list?" I nodded.

"It's like a to-do list but gory. You know, like those fruity smelling watermelon and strawberry shaped pads of paper with a bunch of cute matching bullet points? Those. Only it's in the shape of this really cute silver skull with a black outline and it doesn't smell of anything. Okay, it smells just a tiny bit of blood but that's because he might have dropped it once or twice on a battlefield. And that's also the reason why it's kind of reddish in random spots. And it says 'to-kill' at the top. Lily, James, and Fang were on it for whatever reason."

"Really?"

"Believe it. My dad seriously has one of those things."

"Oh, okay." They still looked a little disappointed but at least they weren't pissed at me anymore.

"Think of it this way," I said. "Effie's a werewolf now, whether you like it or not. She'd never be accepted here in Hogwarts; there's no place for a werewolf here. With dad, as soon as she's old enough, she'll begin her training and with any luck, she'll be among his top ranks in a matter of years. He'd never kill her unless she turned traitor or something drastic like that; a werewolf is too precious to waste these days." They nodded in gloomy understanding.

"We guess…" I smiled.

"There's the fake enthusiasm I was looking for."

* * *

Life's great. You don't need a genius to tell you that. Unless, of course, you're suddenly forced to relive some of your memories which was exactly what dad wanted me to do, apparently.

"He thinks you're getting soft, Max," said Bella who was scanning through my father's latest letter. Feylor was reading over her shoulder.

"It is not surprising, Max-chan," she said quietly. "He tends to think that of many people, even the strongest of them all. You should know, I would think." She then drifted off a few yards away. Luce made a face and looked at me strangely.

"Max-chan?"

"Not you too!"

"She calls you Max-chan?"

"It's a Japanese honorific."

"Uh…"

"Eh…?"

"Erm…"

"Wha…?

"Err…"

"Huh…?"

"She's into Japanese anime and manga," I said at last.

"Oh," they all said at once, nodding their heads the way someone does when they don't get it but they pretend they do because they don't want to seem stupid. I rolled my eyes.

"What else has dad said?"

"He says that from now on, he'll be sending you a memory once a week to make you stronger." Cissy snorted.

"Who ever heard of a memory making you stronger?" I looked at her bitterly.

"You obviously haven't gone through the horrors I have."

"No, of course not. You, after all, are the great Maximum Ride."

"And here's your first memory," said Luce. He handed me a piece of parchment. I touched it gingerly; it was plain parchment with no charms, curses, or enchantments. I relaxed the slightest; he wouldn't be forcing me into a past memory of mind. I carefully unfolded it and read its contents.

'_You're eleven years old. At this time, you should have begun your education at Hogwarts but no, I felt as if you should have stayed educated under my watchful eye. And it is good that I did. Don't you remember what happened that year?_' That was all it said but it still brought shivers down my spine. My father, of all people, was the only one who knew where to hit so that it would hurt me without his slightest effort. As my siblings peered curiously at the contents of the parchment, I slipped away into a memory…

**Dun dun dun… See, I've been lazy…**


	2. Hunter and Arrow

"_A wolf? A husky dog? Oh thank you so much, daddy!" He looked at me proudly. I was his one and only joy and I knew that. I always gave him reasons to be proud. And it was the reason why he showered me in gifts every time my birthday rolled around. A hunting wolf and a hunting dog were two things I had wanted dearly but never thought to ask for. They weren't cheep, but then again, neither was my father._

"_You're welcome, as always, my dear Max. You understand that they are your responsibility. The servants and Death Eaters can help you, but overall, these canines are your responsibility." I smiled. They were both males, the dominant gender of practically all species. Except, like, black widow spiders and the like._

"_I'll name him Arrow and him Hunter," I said, pointing first at the russet wolf and then to the silvery grey husky dog. Arrow reminded me of smooth, reddish brown cedar arrows which I sent flying through the air at shocking speeds from any bow I wielded. Hunter, with his silvery grey beauty and grace, reminded me of Artimis, Goddess of the Hunt. And it fit them, Arrow and Hunter._

"_You're going to have to train Hunter and Arrow; they won't become hunting dogs with neglect." And then he left me to enjoy my newest presents. Immediately, I brought them outside to begin training them to be what I wanted. Hunting dogs._

_Training wasn't easy; Hunter and Arrow both had great ability and talent, but they didn't share any. Arrow could dash through the forest like the wood arrows he was named after and more often than not outran Hunter with ease. All the while, he was a clumsy clod who would crash into trees, shrubbery, and so many other small growths in the forest that by the end of the day, he'd be covered in cuts and scratches. As light and as swift as he was, he didn't know how to use his talent to help him. Hunter, on the other hand, could spin on a dime and was more agile and stronger, allow him to dodge and fight. He was slow, though; to the point that he couldn't catch his prey after it had ran away half the time. More importantly, he didn't know the strength he was capable of and was often too rough while rough playing with Arrow, leaving him with plenty of bruises and battle scars. How could I ever train them? I was barely nine!_

_It took time. I trained them in three separate shifts; I'd start by teaching Hunter speed, stamina, and strength limit. I'd have him run faster, have him run longer, and make him shoot through the forest as fast as possible, which wasn't too bad, seeing as he didn't have to stop at wayward branches. I would later have him rough play, not with me or Arrow, but with the many werewolves under my father's order. During the second shift, Arrow, who knew the power he was capable off, had to run through obstacle courses over and over again. He never tired of running, no; he had nearly unlimited stamina, even if he _did_ trip over bars and slip off of platforms. At the third shift, typically after dinner and a good, needed shower and rest, all three of us would head out at around twilight to hunt small animals. At first, I started out by leaving traces of blood all over. When they discovered the blood and barked like I had trained them too, I would lavish them in praise and a dog biscuit or two if I had any. Soon, they stopped looking for the traces of blood but instead hunted the live animals with their fresher, more appealing blood. I hadn't noticed it at first, but they were becoming bloodthirsty._

_In due time, Hunter and Arrow grew together like brothers; they quarreled some but they loved each other dearly. They knew how to adjust to match the other's movements and they would help each other. My father, as well as his men, admired the canines from a distance, wishing they were their own. None of them, other than father and the occasional Abraxas Malfoy, ever really approached me and truly admired their newfound swiftness and grace; the Death Eaters wouldn't dare to come in contact with the Dark Lord's daughter unless told to and the children were just scared of the hunters themselves. Hunter and Arrow were obedient and loyal to me but the relationship between us was never truly love. They looked up to me as if I was their master, which I was, and they always yearned to do better so I could be proud of them. In turn, I trained them to be better; they started to hunt down animals larger than themselves by dividing and conquering; Arrow would run to catch in and hold it until Hunter could force it down and they would kill it. If it fought back, my dogs would be more than enough to take them on. I was proud of my work, and so was my father._

_Time passed. I grew older. Training wasn't as intense as it used to be and I no longer slept at the library, scrounging for any bits of information I could find on training hunting dogs. Lionel became a bigger part of my life as a brother or a guardian. Arrow and Hunter weren't abandoned like an old toy; rather, they were in the prime of their life. They were growing up with me. I watch my first kill happen, when I assisted in murdering the town which burned Veracity, Ajax, Pollex, and Timor, my aunt and her sons. Arrow and Hunter came with me when we had some other killing business to take care of. They weren't afraid of death, and it made them bold, brave, and terribly reckless. It was okay, though; it made them stronger._

_Even more time passed. Hunter and Arrow turned into the finest hunters around. Now, they were brought to hunt down escapees. Every time someone was brought into the dungeons, dad would take blood from them and keep it in a safe place with everything nicely labeled. If they escaped, he would simply have one of his men give my dogs a whiff of the blood and they would hunt recklessly, killing whoever it was but not mauling them; they needed to be identified anyways. And there was always a bloody trail left, no doubt from tearing off a shackle. My hunting dogs were well behaved and beloved without any doubt. And they loved hunting. Until one terrible night._

_The task itself seemed simple enough: give them the scent of this person's blood, let them hunt, let them kill, and bring the body back, scathed or throat slit. It was so easy; I could have done it easily in my sleep without much trouble. Of course, as father _did_ admit himself, he should have never sent Evanstein no matter how desperate the man was to prove himself. Well, he was sent with my two precious protégées of hunters. Father promised that they would be back soon; I had a new hunting technique I had planned to teach them after dinner. Dinner came and dinner went without any of their little whimpers as they rubbed against my leg, begging me for scraps of steak or ribs, which I always dropped when father wasn't looking. I think he might have known, though. It was very strange, not feeling soft and warm fur rub up and down against my leg and literal puppy dog eyes looking up at me. I remained distant that evening and more so still when night fell and they hadn't returned._

"_They should be back by now," said dad, sounding perplexed. He looked out the window. "I wonder what happened to them."_

"_I don't know," I muttered, distressed and on the verge of tearing out my hair. I had worked myself to near death just to train them to work together so they could hunt, not to be doled out to the lucky winner! Just then, Evanstein returned, sans dogs._

"_Evanstein, you have thirty seconds to explain to me what happened," my father demanded coolly. The filthy bastard sank down into one of the plush green and silver chairs of our parlor room with shock written all over his face. I glared at him menacingly but said nothing._

"_The Aurors," he whispered._

"_What?"_

"_The Aurors, dear Lord, they set the man up as bait to them. They…they were growing suspicious of the lack of their people breaking free from prison alive. They train them to do that, you know. Breaking out of prisons, I mean." Dad nodded emotionlessly. "The dogs, they could not be controlled. When they found him, they smelled the blood they charged straight forward, no matter how hard I tried to hold them back. They seemed to want the man's blood and I could not stop them."_

"_What happened to them?"_

"_They, they were taken by the Aurors and killed." Rage filled me and I saw red. Father must have noticed but he didn't say anything, even when I reached for my wand and pointed it furiously at Evanstein. Those dogs were my pride and joy. I had worked so hard, laboring over them, tending to their wounds, breaking them, making sure they were the greatest hunting dogs the manor ever saw, and they were both gone in one swoop because of this lumbering idiot._

"_Avada Kedavra!" I screeched. Evanstein dropped dead. Father didn't reprimand me. He just looked amused. I slowly felt the anger ebbing away and it was soon replaced by sorrow. "I'm sorry, father," I whispered and I tried not to cry for my two now dead hunters. "I let my anger get the best of me."_

"_It's alright, Max." I looked up at him in surprise. "It's not the greatest, to kill one of our own. One less Death Eater means one more Auror. But sometimes, when need be; even we must comb out our army so keep it in pecking order. Goodnight, Max." I stayed there, quite awake, for a long time after my father left me alone. I sat there, slumped and dejected in a green and silver loveseat, not really sad, but not really angry either. It was as if all my emotions were pulverized in a blender and fed to me as a smoothie. I was watching the fire dance and crackle. The embers of the fire glowed brightly in the dark room and for a moment, under my saddened trance, I wondered what the ember would feel like in my hands…_

_Someone draped a blanket over me. I looked up in surprise. Lionel looked under the weather too._

"_I know how much you cared for those dogs," Lionel said softly, giving me a hug. "But getting yourself sick won't help anyone. Get's some rest." I numbly got to my feet and headed for the heavy wood doors. I didn't think I could open then, given how weak I was feeling. My eyes fell on the dead, forlorn body of the man who had led my hunters to their death and I felt a sudden surge of anger, enough to get the door open. My hunters were gone now. They died, doing what they did best: hunt. And it killed them in the end._

_Within a few days, dad got me two other hunting dogs, this time, trained. I gave them simple, laid back names: Grey for the male wolf and Winter for the female husky. They were undoubtedly talented and could work with each other easily. It didn't matter to me any, even when they begged for scraps of both food and attention from me, or when they caught their first prey under my command or when they teased me by tugging my blankets and pillowed gently in the morning. Time passed, like it always did, and my broken heart healed some, allowing me to accept the two new youngsters for who they were, as well as their children. Nonetheless, the memory of Hunter and Arrow was engraved far too deeply into my mind. It hurt me still, after all these years…

* * *

_

"Max…Max…" I flinched. "Wow, your dad must really know you if he can freak you out in what? Four sentences?" Cissy smirked at me.

"Nine years old?" asked Bella curiously, rereading the letter again. "What the worst that could happen?"

"Max?" Luce touched my shoulder gently while laughing softly. "Are you okay?"

"Of course I'm not!" I practically yelled, hitting his hand off. "You wouldn't act so cocky if you lived through what I lived did!" Hunter…Arrow…I thought I had buried their memory far enough in my subconscious mind to stop hurting. But they would hurt me, no matter what, and I wasn't going to forget them. Ever.

"Max…" The twins both reached a tentative hand out to me. I turned away and got up abruptly, refusing to look at anyone so that my eyes wouldn't betray how I was really feeling..

"I…I have to go," I said lamely and walked out. As soon as I was out of sight, I ran as fast as possibly to the dorms. Okay, I cut through a shadow, but I still got there in record time without Apparating. I felt so weak, so vulnerable, like someone had torn off my clothes. I wanted to break down and cry. I, the great Maximum Ride, _never_ cried, no questions asked. Zip, zero, nada. My Hunter. My Arrow. My babies, my hunters. They were ripped from me in the most vicious, most grueling way possible. Murdered by Aurors. I _hated_ Aurors. Dad said the experience made me less vulnerable to the Aurors, but I would give away all the experience and hate if I could have them back. My babies, Hunter and Arrow.

Gone…gone…gone… I was becoming weaker. How could I? One year at normal Wizarding School had turned me into a complete softy. I hadn't cried since I was brought to dad. And now, I wanted to cry because of a memory. That was all it was: a memory. And yet I wanted to break down in tears. "Hunter…Arrow…Hunter…Arrow…" I said their names like a chant. "Hunter…Arrow…Hunter…Arrow…" I felt droplets run down my face, leaving a sparkling wet trail all the way down to my chin. I was crying. I quickly wiped away my tears and forced the tears to stay put. Someone cleared their throat and I looked up in surprise.

"Class starts in about ten minutes. I just thought you might want to know." Fang looked at me in surprise. "The great Maximum Ride, all sad and depressed." He didn't mean it unkindly. "We better go." He offered his hand and it felt like a dam inside me broke. I jumped up and gripped the front of his shirt tightly, sobbing into his chest. He stiffened in surprise as first but then cautiously wrapped his arms around me and rocked me slowly in a standing position. We stayed like that for what seemed like an hour but it was only a few minutes.

"I'm s-s-so s-s-sorry," I said through my slowly subsiding tears when I finally pulled away. I had succeeded in completely soaking his shirt in salty tears and mucus. He didn't look worried.

"_Scorgify_. There. All better." He smiled slightly at me, the kind of smile that made the world spin faster. Then he sat down on the bed next to me and hugged me close. "It's going to be okay, Max."

"Thanks," I whispered lamely. I inhaled, taking in his soft, simple scent of, well, him. Then Bella's alarm clock caught my eye and I gasped.

"Max?"

"Class starts in two minutes!" I all but shrieked, jumping out of his arms. He didn't move as I ran around the room, getting everything together. As soon as I finished, I looked at him. "Aren't you going to do something?"

"Actually, I already dropped my stuff off at class. I thought I might be here a while. I told Professor Sparrow you were very distressed and she said that she doesn't expect you to make it to class on time, or to class at all."

"Then what about you?"

"Oh, she said that I could stay with you if you were really taking it that bad." I nodded numbly. "Do you want me to stay, or would you rather be alone?"

"Can you stay?" I asked quietly, slowly letting the adrenaline leave my bloodstream.

"What happened?" I looked away, not wanting my eyes to betray me.

"Nothing. I was just reminded of…of a memory." He didn't laugh or think it was funny in any way whatsoever. He just nodded in understanding; I think he really did understood what I was feeling.

"If this were a normal situation, I would offer you two choices." Talking about it, or not. "However, I know you, and we're going to be talking about it. You can call me your psychiatrist." I glared at him. "What?"

"I don't need a psychiatrist."

"Yes you do," he argued.

"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"No you don't."

"See? I told you so." He cussed under his breath.

"It always works so well with other people." I smirked at him in triumph. "Do you want to go to the walled flower garden?"

* * *

I hadn't come here since I tried to find Fang and instead found his sister and hadn't come here with Fang since…the last time I came here with Fang. I don't know; I'm not good with dates. Literally. Being who I was, you would have imagined that I went on a few more dates. But no…

"It hasn't changed much," said Fang, sitting on the floor of the gazebo. There were a few vicious cracks from the time Tarlyn more or less invaded the place with evil rosebushes and then reassembled it in less than a minute but other than that, he was right. It hadn't changed a whole lot.

"Why are we here?" I asked, stepping completely out of the shadows from which I had just traveled through. The last time I shadow traveled was when I had come back from freeing Fang, Lily, and James. Father was absolutely furious with no one to blame it on, so he rampaged through the manor, but I managed to subdue him with a large dose of manipulation before he could do any real damage. It was a rather frightening and disturbing situation, one I would not enjoy to live through again, that's for sure. Fang shrugged.

"I've missed this place. I bet you have too." I nodded deftly. It was as beautiful as ever, the emerald grass, the pale sapphire sky, and the snow-colored silky clouds dotting the morning sky… This was where Fang and I had our first conversation about Itex. This was where we had our first kiss. This was where we spent our free time together. This was where I created my happiest memories. And this was where I hurt. From the look on his face, it looked like Fang had bittersweet memories here too. Then he looked at me suddenly. "What happened?" I flinched.

"It's…not a big deal," I said lamely.

"Yes it is," he argued. "You were crying. You've never cried since I've found you. And before that, as far as I know, the only time you cried at Itex was when mutants died." I glared at him, even though I knew he was completely right; the only time I ever cried at that Hell-hole of a place was when someone else died in a cage.

"Maybe," I said. "So? I've changed?"

"And became what? Softer?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Max, if anything, you became stronger. This must have been just a really strong blow to you, right?" When I said nothing, he reached over and touched the back of my hand with his own, rough and calloused from years of fighting at Itex and undoubtedly long after he left. They were, in a way, just like mine, only bigger. An electric shock ran through me violently, but I refused to move; this moment was too good to be destroyed.

"Yeah…yes, yes it was," I said at last in a soft voice. He nodded.

"If you don't tell me, I can't help you." It was like what Feylor had said. _It's good to talk about the things that hurt you. The more pain you feel, the stronger you will become._ It figured; she and my dad had been siblings once. Of course they would think alike.

"Okay, Fang. So this is what happened…" And for the next two hours, (we had block with Professor Sparrow and later Professor Slughorn loved both of us so he would look the other way,) I told him everything I could about Hunter and Arrow. He nodded at the right parts and knew what to say at the right time. He wasn't just deftly listening; he was really listening and he understood my pain.

"So, let's get this straight. You train them and treat them like your children and when they die, that's the best you can do?" he asked at last, referring to the fact that I didn't cry. Most people would have hated him for that or tore his throat out. I just smiled grimly.

"I guess I knew they would die fighting somehow. Their lust of blood would cause their death in the end. I'm just glad that they didn't feel the pain when they died." He nodded.

"Reasonable enough, I guess. I would want the same if that happened to me."

"If you were to die or if you had hunters?"

"Both." I couldn't help but agree. When I died, I wanted it to be swift and unexpected and, hopefully, painless. That was probably more than I could hope for, sadly. I was my father's daughter.

* * *

"Do you have all the teachers wound around your little finger or something?" asked Bella irritably, sliding into the seat next to me and handing me my schedule which she took. I rolled my eyes, feeling better than I did this morning at breakfast.

"Nah…Professor Sparrow loves all Slytherin in general and ol' Sluggy likes me because he thinks I have 'potential' or something." Luce snorted.

"Yup, him and his posse of favorites."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

"It is."

"How?" asked Cissy, giving him a peck on the cheek.

"I don't know. It's like you're one of the elite in his eyes and you're all perfect and stuff. You'll be with people like Remus Lupin and Sicily Varner and stuff."

"Sicily's my friend," I said sternly. So, okay, maybe she still acted like a slut and okay, she did creep me out sometimes, but she did know how to hear things and spread rumors nearly as fast as Nudge and could make it sound convincing. She sort of reminded me of a character in a muggle book I once read. _Animal Farm_, it was called. She was like the pig Squealer. But when you think about it, _Animal Farm_ is the story of my life in the making. My dad was Napoleon, my siblings and I were the dogs, the other Death Eaters were the pigs, the soft, foolish, and petty Minister of Magic was Snowball, and pretty much everyone else was one or another of the animals working on the farm. It was pretty much the same thing. If it wasn't about animals and it wasn't supposed to be a remaking of the Russian Revolution and the fact that dad would be all ruling and more feared and we'd never side with those lousy other minded people.

"Sicily's your _friend_?" asked Jay, surprised. "I mean, I knew you guys were allies but _friends_?"

"Ally, friend, same difference," I said indifferently.

"You seem happier," said Sev tiredly. I guess advanced advance Potions was starting to catch up with him.

"A bit," I admitted brightly.

"How so?"

"Oh, nothing," I lied. "I just had a really good day."

"After, of course, you ditched DADA with Professor Sparrow's consent and skipped Potions because you knew ol' Sluggy would look the other way," he teased. I nodded.

"Of course! I just needed…some time alone." Luce looked at me suspiciously.

"Can I talk to you after dinner, Max?" asked my blond brother. I nodded.

"Okay. Whatever for?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

* * *

"Okay, you've been pacing around for the past ten minutes. What is it? I'm getting scared." Not that I was, really. The great Maximum Ride never gets scared What? That time? I was _not_ scared!

"'Funny you should ask, Max. I want to know'…no; that sounds too demanding." And then Luce started pacing again. We were in the Room of Requirement with Iggy and Nudge, waiting for Luce to come up with something to say. And this was taking a really long time!

"Can't we get some hot chocolate or something?" Nudge whined after an hour of Luce's pacing. "I want hot chocolate and the room won't give me any." I noticed a door behind her.

"Go through that door; it'll probably lead to the kitchen and you can go asks the house elves for some."

"Why won't the hot chocolate appear here?" asked Iggy once she had left after much assurance that we would keep the passageway open for her.

"Laws of magic. You can't make food appear out of nowhere. You can make it bigger, you can duplicated it if you have some, you can summon it with Accio if you know where it is, but you can't just make it appear," I explained.

"That makes no sense," he said right as his stomach growled. "I think I'm going to get some food myself."

"Go get me some beef jerky!" I said as he walked out the door. He nodded and left. "So, Luce?"

"Why were you so happy today at dinner? You were so sad this morning." I quirked a brow at him.

"Demanding, aren't you?"

"Really, Max."

"I told you, I had a really good day." I wasn't lying, not really.

"Max, that's only half the truth. Why was it such a good day?"

"Because."

"Because what?"

"Hey, I have a picnic basket full of food if anyone's interested," said Nudge. She handed me a pack of beef jerky, the soft and moist kind I liked, not the dry and stringy one. "I got the normal beef jerky, you know, the dried beef jerky that's not all wet? Well, Iggy said you liked this one better when you guys were at Itex so I hope he's right because I'm not going back."

"He's right," I said, savoring a piece. "And you should know; you were there with us. Where is he anyways?"

"Using the kitchen to cook something, I guess. He's really into cooking things." I nodded. Unsurprising; he had had a love of mixing things together when we were at Itex. I completely failed at that.

"You're right," said Iggy, one hand on a large platter, the other touching the wall to guide him back. "Bon appétit!"

"Uh…?"

"Um…?"

"Err…?"

"Eh…?"

"Iggy?" asked Nudge at last. "What exactly…?"

"Chocolate, only fancier. This is called a truffle dusted in cocoa powder–"

"Aren't truffles some sort of gourmet mushroom?" asked Nudge, wrinkling her nose. "I hate mushrooms."

"No, no, no. They are smooth, semi-dark chocolates with rich flavor. And here, I have it with mint sprigs and I mixed in some mint extract with the truffle as well as some butterscotch in this truffle if you prefer."

"Chocolates," I said, "are a way to a girl's heart. Say, did you ever think about giving one to Aella?" He looked sort of sad.

"She…left me for some other person who needed the love more than I did." If I looked surprised, Nudge looked absolutely horrified.

"What? Really? How could she just get up and leave?" Nudge demanded. Iggy shrugged and looked away.

"I don't want to talk about it." Nudge nodded meekly.

"Okay."

"Max, back to our previous conversation," said Luce, picking up a little orange. I wasn't sure if it was really a little orange or if it was a tangerine or Clementine on steroids. It looked like it could pass as either. I didn't want to find out. "Why was it such a good day?"

"Because."

"Ha ha. Iggy? Nudge?" I turned around quickly but not quick enough to avoid what they had planned for me. "AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

"Hey, it worked," said Nudge in proud surprise. "I thought she would have struggled a bit more than that."

"Well we did more or less jump on her," said Iggy reasonably. I wriggled.

"Let me go," I whined. This was ridiculous. Nudge, who's completely fashion obsessed, grabbed this ribbon made out of some super strong material which was supposed to be great for hiking boots with a fashion statement. Then Iggy, whose stealth skills couldn't match his cooking skills, mixed up a clear concoction known as a truth serum. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because Luce asked us to," said Nudge simply.

"Since when did you listen to my brother?" I demanded.

"Since he promised us we would benefit from this," said Iggy brightly. "Now, open wide!"

"What?" I sputtered as he pinched my face to open my mouth and poured it mercilessly down my throat. "Damn."

"Now, why was it such a good day?" asked Luce pleasantly.

"Because I got to spend it with Fang," I blurted. "Damn it; just how strong did you make this?" Typically, I could stand this stuff and shut my mouth but this was _strong_.

"Well, we might have made it wrong," Iggy admitted. "I'm blind, if you haven't noticed. I'm sure the side effects aren't permanent," he added optimistically. I glared at him.

"I'm glaring at you, Iggy." His smile faltered. Then he grinned in the way that should look happy but really scares people.

"So…you and Fangles."

"WHAT?"

"You _like_ him," he taunted.

"I do not!" I said hotly.

"Yes you _do_…" Nudge smirked confidently. "You're going to grow up and get married and have little winged mutant babies," she cooed.

"Do you like him?" asked Luce sweetly.

"Yes," I answered automatically and groaned. Potions are dangerous.

"See? You can't lie to us. We can see it in your eyes," said Nudge.

"Or," I said irritably, "it's because you've just poured scorching hot truth serum down my throat and I have to answer questions truthfully."

"Unlikely," said Iggy. "I cooled it down before I gave it to you."

"So?" I asked, thoroughly annoyed. "Don't you know that truth serums burn your throat more the stronger they are? Or were you too oblivious in class?" I tried to swallow my own saliva to moisten my parched throat which was as dry and as rough as sand paper."Water," I croaked. Nudge handed me a cup of water, looking guilty.

"Were really sorry," she said quietly. "We thought we were helping you." I felt the cold liquid run through me, washing away the effects of the serum as it went.

"It's…okay," I said at last. "Just don't do that again."

"We won't," said my brother. "We got everything we needed already."

* * *

"It's a weird feeling?" asked Tarlyn as she gazed at me with curiosity. It was a few days after my memory of Hunter and Arrow. I didn't tell her about my wolves; just about Fang. We were both in my dream via Lavina's magic. The part-Veela girl was painting her nails…again. Athens, as usual, was there too but he was too busy studying something or other. I think he was studying Latin or something; I don't know. "I guess it would be. Did I tell you that I just found out that my given name at birth was Violet?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked. She shrugged.

"I don't know…I was hacking into the system again at this little muggle computer café I found over the weekend. And it turns out, my name is actually Violet."

"Cool, I guess."

"Not really; I don't exactly like that name." She rolled her dark blue eyes. "Anyways, there's this guy…"

"I thought you were with Jaq."

"I am, I am," she said, reassuring me. "And I'm not cheating on him or anything, but tell CaraLena I've found her the perfect guy."

"Uh…okay."

"His name is D.J. He's a mutant. Em thinks he's weird; I think he is too, but who cares? They'd be perfect together, D.J. and CaraLena."

"Who's Em?"

"He's a year older than me and Magi's boyfriend."

"Magi is…?"

"She's Jazz's twin sister."

"And Jazz….?"

"Oh, he's Magi's twin brother, obviously."

"Uh, okay."

"Cool, huh? How's my twin? Your ex-boyfriend twin."

"He's…doing okay. I mean, he's still as dark and as quiet as ever but it's not a big deal," I said, shrugging.

"And my half brother?"

"Perfect. I don't know about him and Adrian and it probably wouldn't make a difference. He's still King and I don't know who's Queen, and he's a Prefect. So is your other brother. I am a Prefect too, speaking of which."

"Really?" she asked. "That's great! _Tu es une bonne fille ! Félicitation!_"

"Thanks, I guess?" She laughed.

"It's a compliment. Haven't you studied French?"

"Yeah, but it's not offered at Hogwarts so I haven't brushed up on it in a while." She nodded.

"_D'accord_. So, are you and Fang going to get together again?" I sighed.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Do you like him?" I paused. "Of course you do."

"Hey, how would you know?" I demanded. She rolled her eyes.

"I've already told you that I see the unseen. So, I guess you could say I can see your feelings." She shrugged. "It's a strange concept."

"I just don't know what to do," I admitted. "I mean, he used to be my best friend, and then all of a sudden, he's torn away from me, I find out he's the guy I hate about ten year later, we get together, he cheats on me, we break up, I find out that he didn't cheat on me, and now what can I do? It's just so, so alien to me."

"Never mind _you_; it's a strange concept for me also."

"And you finally crack." She shrugged.

"I think I have to go; I can feel Lavina's magic weakening. It'll probably break in a matter of minutes. You have to wake up anyways."

"Okay. Bye Tarlyn."

"Bye. Tell Jaq I love him, give Selwyn a hug for me, tell CaraLena I've found her the perfect guy, and ask Fang out for me, will you?"

"Sure. Hey, wait a minute…" But she was already gone, leaving me in my dream world. I sighed and reluctantly pulled myself out of it.

Back in the real world, it was still dark out. Actually, the moon was still shining. I glanced over at the clock. It was 2 in the morning. Too excited to go to sleep, however, I got up and went to find the Sixth years. I took a while, wandering around in the dark, but with my extreme eyesight, I made it to their dorm without tripping over anything. From underneath the door I saw a thin line of light and knocked. Of course, CaraLena answered.

"What?" she muttered groggily. "I just finished my homework; let me go to sleep."

"Tarlyn rang." She cracked open one eye and looked at me. She seemed to sense that I was telling the truth because she shut her eye and nodded.

"Come in."

Their dorm was very neat and organized which was something I had not anticipated due to Adrian's natural seer clumsiness and constantly occurring vision overload attacks along with the messiness of both CaraLena and Zohra. There was no ink or juice stains on the carpet, all their clothes were folded neatly, and all their random trinkets, such as CaraLena's eyeliner, Zohra's books, and Adrian's many headbands were all put in their rightful place and arranged neatly. CaraLena notice me looking around. "Surprised?" she asked tiredly.

"Yeah, kind of," I admitted. "You guys never seemed to be the people who kept their dorm neat."

"You never seemed like the type who would be your father's daughter either," she retorted. "Outer appearances are one thing but they aren't always the real thing."

"Okay… Anyways, Tarlyn called. She said that she's found you the perfect boy."

"Uh…"

"And it's not Matt."

"That I can live with. Tell me, what's he like?"

"She didn't tell me."

"Of course," she said, rolling her eyes. "She ALWAYS does that! Did she say anything else that I need to know?"

"Nope."

"You're a great friend, Max, and I don't want to seem like an ungrateful host, but I really have to kick you out because I really need my sleep."

"Goodnight."

"Night…" She sort of closed the door and then I heard a few footsteps and a muted thud. Wow. I wouldn't want to wake her up in the morning.

* * *

"Hey! Jaq! Hello? Where are you?" I ran around the place just calling his name. Some of the younger kids and people from other houses looked at me strangely but the older Slytherins knew what I was doing and they just sort of either smiled knowingly or mentioned seeing him in various places. Finding an invisible person is never easy. Finding an invisible person that can only been seen in the shadows while it's the sunniest it's ever been all year who's super quiet to start with? Practically impossible.

"What do you need him for?" asked Selwyn, who's normally long and spiky dark green hair was now fashioned into a rainbow Mohawk.

"Oh, this is from Tarlyn." I hugged him. He hugged me back.

"Thanks, little sister!"

"I'm not your little sister; I'm you twin!" I mimicked. He laughed.

"You sound just like her!"

"I know. Now…where's Jaq?"

"Who knows? The only ways I can think of to get him to come out of hiding are cruel, harmful, or heartbreaking."

"Aren't they all the same thing?"

"No."

"Selwyn…"

"Okay, maybe a bit."

"I thought so. Who do you think can find Jaq?"

"Other than Tarles? You could ask Adrian if she can sense human souls with no visible form."

"She can do that?"

"She's a seer; of course she can! It's like she's the mailman straight from the spirit world."

"Really?"

"Yes! Go hunt her down; she'll be a whole lot easier than trying to find an invisible person yourself."

"Okay. Thanks, Selwyn." He grinned widely.

"No problem. See you, Max."

**Poll. On my page. Vote for which story you don't want to be put on hold.  
**


	3. Raven

**I haven't updated in so long and this chapter is so short... I wish I could write more but with the real life Dave just asking to be pummeled to near death with all the emails he's sending me and making me respond to (competition; he wants to win) I can't write as much as I want.**

"Adrian formerly Potter! Hell-O!"

"What?" she mumbled softly, lightly flickering her hazel eyes which were nearly identical to James'.

"Can you help me find someone?" I asked sweetly. She looked up at me. (Yes, up. She might be over a year older than me but she's still so petite she could pass for a First year.)

"Well…"

"It's Jaq."

"I don't see why not," she said slowly, closing her eyes. With her eyes still closed, she walked forward, straight into a wall. Some Gryffindor laughed.

"Stupid Slythies," she cackled to her friend. I glared at them, my eyes glittering with menace.

"And you two," I hissed, manipulating seeping in, "are incapable of having a positive IQ." They stared blankly at me. "Hello?"

"They are incapable of having positive IQs, remember?" asked Adrian. "They are incapable of answering."

"What?"

"You didn't manipulate them?"

"If I did, I didn't notice."

"I'm not surprised." And then she walked straight into the wall again.

"Uh…"

"I can sense the unseen soul, not the in-clear-sight wall," she said irritably. "Guide me?"

"How?"

"Just sort of tug me one way or another if I'm about to crash into something." So I did. And I was pretty good at guiding her around, too. Well, I did admittedly let her crash into a suit of armor once…and she did trip over Mrs. Norris, which made Filch very angry.

"You're going to hurt her!" exclaimed Zohra as she yanked Adrian sharply to avoid narrowly tumbling down when the staircases changed suddenly. I smiled sheepishly.

"Oops…"

"That way." Adrian pointed in the general direction of 'that way'.

"Could you be less specific?" I muttered sarcastically.

"I can sense an unseen soul…in a place I've never been before."

"Huh?"

"It's part of the castle, but it's walled off. I've never been there before, nor can I understand how anyone was to get there. A ghost, perhaps, might be able to get there. They have souls, even if they are mostly unseen."

"Oh, I get it," I said. Zohra looked at me strangely. Even Adrian opened her eyes to shoot me a curious look. "Never mind. Thanks anyways." I waved goodbye to them while I walked away. They just kept looking at me.

"Do you think she's okay?" asked Zohra once I rounded the corner.

"Nope."

"Jaq Gibbons!" I demanded. "Where are you?" My voiced bounced off the walls of the walled garden. Birds chirped cheerfully around and I slouched over to the gazebo. This was the only walled in area I ever found. So where was he?

"Who are you looking for?"

"Jaq Gibbons."

"Why would he be here?"

"How would I know?" I asked stressfully. "I just know that he's supposed to be here."

"You sound frustrated," said Fang quietly.

"No duh. I'm looking for him."

"He is hard to find, isn't he?" Fang mused. "I'll keep an eye out for him." I reluctantly watched him leave and then sat down. Jaq had been so terribly unstable for a while now. One of these days, he was just going to die or something terrible and we'd wonder what went wrong.

No. We wouldn't wonder. We would know. His littlest sister was mauled by a werewolf, Tarlyn was pretty much gone, his other little sister, Halo, was still going through mental problems caused by shock; who wouldn't be affected by stuff like this? My dad maybe. No…he had been affected by stuff much worse, which was why he was, as some might say, mad. He killed his own sister. He married the girl of his dreams who died when his daughter, I, was born. And the rest of his family was dead or like Feylor, in ghost form. It was awful.

"What do you want?" whispered a voice.

"Hi Jaq! I heard from–"

"I don't want to hear from her."

"Huh?"

"Tarlyn. I don't want to hear from her."

"What? Why?"

"She left me," he said bitterly. "So this is her punishment." And he walked silently to the wall with roses climbing up it. Paying no attention to the thorns, he gripped onto the twisting vines and pulled himself up and over the walls.

* * *

"I haven't heard a Howler in far too long," said Zohra thoughtfully at breakfast.

"Obviously not," muttered CaraLena as she recovered from the shock she had received when the little First year sitting next to her opened the dreaded red envelope only to hear his mother's furious voice. The poor little kid had fainted from shock and had to be brought to the hospital wing. "What was it about? Something involving him losing his sister or something?"

"I think it was about being sorted into Slytherin," said Selwyn.

"I wonder if he'll be disowned," Adrian mused thoughtfully.

"Look. Another letter from your father," said Severus, sliding his grubby, potion covered nails under the red wax seal. It came off with a pop. Bella scoffed and I paled.

"Oh great. You know, Max, when you missed DADA last time, I had to be paired up with Sicily Varner. Sicily Varner! I know you guys are allies, but I still hate her, nonetheless," said Bella bitterly.

"How could you hate someone who's helping you that much?" asked Cissy.

"She's not helping me in particular. None of us are friends with her. It's like…it's like how you hate Christiana Rowle." Cissy made a face.

"Never mind."

"She's terrible!" complained the twins. "Sicily Varner is a complete slut!"

"No she's not," I said wearily.

"She is too!" said Jay. "She's awful!"

"Horrendous!"

"Dreadful!"

"Terrible!"

"Horrible!"

"Mind-boggling!"

"Mind-boggling?"

"I couldn't think of anything else to say," said Orin defensively. I rolled my eyes and warily plucked the letter out of Luce's grip and read it.

'_You're about, say, eleven. Hunter and Arrow are almost fully trained with their lust of blood. I don't know exactly what happened that night, but I know something did. What was it?' _That was all I read before I passed out. The last thing I heard was a voice. It could have been Fangs' and it could have been _hers'_ but I didn't have a chance to find out before I fell into a black, dark, sweet oblivion.

* * *

_No one could ever deny the fact that my life was joyous and full. My father loved me, the Death Eaters loved me, and I had Hunter and Arrow to keep me company. Then again, no one could ever deny that my life was lonely. Other than the occasional glimpse of the children of other Death Eaters when they came home from vacation, I had no company of someone my age. Unless you counted Luce's mother, there wasn't a single female in the house I had ever spoken to. I yearned for the company of a female. A sister, a friend, and mother, and aunt; anyone would do. Around this time, I found the entrance to the dungeons. I often snuck down there with Hunter and Arrow after placing Silencing Charms on them. Most of the prisoners were male and even if there was a female, she was usually very touchy and defensive and very rude. They weren't good company._

_Once, after a raid in the Ministry of Magic, there were many people brought to the dungeons. Samples of their blood were taken so they could be tracked down by my hunters if they escaped. I visited the dungeon after the raid and finally found someone to talk to. Her name was Raven._

_Raven Gazelle, with her black hair, eyes, and clothing was dark and mysterious and seemingly untouchable. Unless you were trying to find her or you were a mutant abnormality like I was, you would have never noticed her presence. She looked menacing and evil but once you got her to open up and talk, she was actually very cheerful and very good company. _

_Raven had this sweet, innocent smile like she knew no evil. We talked about everything. We talked about her mummy, her daddy, and about her pet cats at home named Dadaelya (Da-day-leah) and Kirk. Dadaelya was a girl and Kirk was a boy and they were both a soft __golden colour.__ She loved them dearly. When they had kittens, she was forced to give them away which made her very sad indeed. She also had an older brother named Blake who was a prefect of Ravenclaw and an older sister who she didn't like named Blair who was a cat Animagus._

_We talked about how much she hated being the daughter of a high ranking Ministry worker._

_I talked about myself too. I talked about how my mummy died when I was young and about Hunter and Arrow. I talked about all the pains I went through to train them and how much I loved them. I talked about Lucius' mum, Auntie Malfoy, who gave me little trinkets whenever she come back from traveling somewhere and about my brother, Lionel, who cared for me greatly. I also talked about Nagini, father's snake who was the other heir to his fortune and immortality, who liked me very much. We often, as I told Raven, spoke in Parseltongue to each other because she had difficulty speaking to anyone else but me and my father and I sought female company which was very hard to attain._

_We even once spoke of my father._

_Every day, after breakfast, I would come down and talk to her about everything, only leaving for meals and for lessons. For months, I spent every free moment with her just talking just because I could. We shared secrets and fears. We told each other our dreams. After a while, she became the closest thing to a friend I ever had._

_Dad got suspicions after a while but said nothing. I knew that he was just glad that I was happy and healthy but he probably knew that there was something not right. He never did anything about it though. When Lionel came back from Hogwarts, things changed. I had to split my time very carefully between Raven and my brother. I think they both knew that there was someone else but other than a few inquiring questions, they never said much about the other._

_A few weeks after school began again for Lionel, Raven managed to escape from her cell. I was shocked and sad. I guess she wanted to escape and go home, but I wanted her company too. So when I selfishly reported Raven missing, it was one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made._

"_Father. There's a girl who was here. Her name is Raven. She has escaped from the dungeon."_

"_Is that so?" he asked softly. She turned to our butler. "Reau, go get the blood sample from this girl Raven." Reau returned to the room in a few minutes. Hunter and Arrow were whimpering, squirming around my feet with anticipation. Reau handed my father the vial of blood._

"_You aren't going to hunt her, are you?" I asked uncertainly._

"_Of course," he said. I waited for him to say 'not', but he never did. Rather, he asked for Abraxas, Luce's father and the only Death Eater who ever thought of my hunters as more than just devices, to bring them out to hunt Raven._

"_Oh, I want to do it," I said quickly. Both men looked at me in surprise._

"_Max, it's late," said my father quietly._

"_I haven't brought them out hunting in such a long time," I lied. I had brought them out last night._

"_Very well, Max," he said reluctantly. "As you wish."_

_The air was cool and crisp with the leaves of autumn tumbling down. Hunter and Arrow sped as silently as possible through the forest surrounding the manor and beyond; very difficult seeing as the leaves crunched noisily with each step we took. Eventually, I started to fly above them as to make less noise. Before long, my hunters found her. Bloodlust over came them, and they attacked her._

"_Get off!" I screamed, trying desperately to call them off. They tore through her, sinking their teeth into her flesh and ripping her into ribbons while her sharp screams shattered the other wisely peaceful night. Blood sprayed everywhere. "Get off!" I cried. "Stop!" Nothing stopped them, not even when Raven's cries of help ceased with a gurgle of blood and the life seeped out of her eyes. "Stop…"_

_She was gone, and I had to acknowledge that. All my secrets that I told died with her that day. There was one saying that ran through my head a lot after she had died._

'_Two can keep a secret if one of them is dead.'_

_I was glad that my secrets were safe, but I'd trade them all for Raven's life.

* * *

_

"Max? Hello? You're starting to look like Feylor." I blinked a few times and the memory cleared, my eyes showing me the concerned faces of my friends.

"She does not," scoffed my aunt in a soft yet haughty voice. "I look _much_ more translucent than her!"

"Are you okay?" asked Cissy. I nodded unconvincingly.

"Yes…I am fine," I whispered hoarsely.

"No, you are not. Where is he?"

"Who?

"Oh, you know, Max," said Feylor. "That dark mysterious boy that made you better the other time. Fang." I blushed.

"Ooh, what's going on between you and Fang?" asked Nudge eagerly.

"I'll tell you when I want the school to know, gossip queen," I said sharply, making her flinch in verbal pain. "Sorry."

"It's okay," she said without looking at me.

"Alright. I have to go to class now. Coming, Bella?"

"Yeah, sure. Let me finish my cup of tea." She downed it and took a chocolate chip muffin too while she was at it and came with me to DADA. "We're doing Patronuses," she added in between bites of a muffin as we both climbed up the winding stairs to the new DADA room. Something happened to the old one. (Okay, okay, so CaraLena and Selwyn tricked Dave into eating really hot jalapeño hot sauce and he couldn't taste anything because he had a cold. A while later in DADA, he sneezed. Being a dragon and all, flames naturally came out. With the hot sauce? Try a wall of flames. The place is practically burned up. On the bright side, Professor Sparrow was convinced that someone slipped up o the spell we were practicing and said Incendio so no one found out about Dave's being a part dragon mutation.)

"Fun. What's yours?"

"A hyena. At least I think it is. It sounds like one anyways. So far, that's the animal closest to what it looks like. It's really cool. What about you?" I frowned.

"I'm not sure. I haven't cast a Patronus in a long time. I'm pretty sure it's a hawk or something. I know it has wings." Bella laughed.

"It fits you. And maybe it'll be clearer this time and you'll find out what it is," she said brightly.

DADA was simple and easy as usual with Professor Sparrow who, as I heard, was the only teacher to come back for a second year in a very long time. (Apparently, this job position's cursed.) We went through a quick run through of what happened while I was gone which was, fortunately, stuff I had already learned from my days of being homeschooled. We soon got to practice casting out Patronuses with a partner. Naturally, I tried to team up with Bella. Naturally, that failed and I got put with Fang.

"I've cast a few of these before," he said quietly. I glanced over at Bella who was paired up with Lissa. I shot her a pitiful look while Lissa mentally shot daggers at me. Ouch. Fang muttered the incarnation, Expecto Patronum, and something with wings sprouted out. It looked large and vicious, like a crow. No; it looked more like a hawk than mine ever did.

"Expecto Patronum," I whispered and like his, something with wings came out except I knew exactly what it was. It wasn't a hawk, even if it could have been easily mistaken for one from far away or at a quick glance. It was a raven.

* * *

"You seem well," whispered a soft voice from behind me. Jaq. I just stared at him. He had a cold, stony face on, very similar to Fang's when he was being distant. There was no expression on it but his eyes seemed sad and depressed, like something awful had happened.

"Are you okay?" I asked, concerned. He shrugged.

"Yes. I suppose."

"You sure? You seemed really mad back there…" His eyes suddenly glittered with a flash of anger that disappeared before I could confirm it.

"I still am. At _her_." No need to ask who 'her' was.

"Why are you mad at her?" I demanded. He looked away.

"She deserves this," he spat bitterly.

"She does not!" I snapped viciously. "Really, Jaq; what's going on?"

"Nothing." I simply looked him straight in the eye for a second. Two seconds. Three. Four…

"No, really."

"I'm fine!" he hissed. And then I saw the blood.

"You didn't…" pale faced, I grabbed his left arm and yanked the sleeve back. Angry red cuts spiraled around. Droplets of blood beaded. I glared at him. "Jaq…"

"I fell," he said lamely.

"Let me guess. It was a pool of knives? A crazy cat lady starter kit? (A/N When I'm old enough, I'm going to see if I can get one for one of my friends.) A bucket of thorny roses?" I was screeching by the end of my rant.

"Shut up," he snarled at me. "You wouldn't understand."

"Why not?" I demanded. "Give me a reason why I wouldn't understand."

"Everything she does," he screamed. "Everything she does, it's for the greater good! She can give up everything just to make sure the world is a better place! She'll sacrifice everything for it. Even her life. And I can't stand that." I froze, watching silent tears run down his face. "I can't live a life without her. I can't. So what can I do? Just let it tear me apart? Max, if I can't make myself hate her for leaving, hate her for doing this to me," he gestured to the cuts on his arms, "I can't do anything."

* * *

"…and then he freaks out on me, saying that it's because he can't stand all this stuff."

"Uh huh. Poor guy."

"My thoughts exactly!" I was pacing around the walled garden and talking to Fang who, surprisingly, wasn't as much of an ass as he typically was. He'd been a lot nicer since I had my break down a while back. "It's like he _wants_ to hate her, like he wants to tear her out of his life."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Fang admitted. "He's suffering like I did when…" He didn't need to say the words out loud; we both knew.

"I just wish…that there was something I could do for him."

"There's not a whole lot you can do," Fang admitted. "Unless you want to fly over to France and get my little sister back."

"I thought she's the older one."

"Nope," he said, flashing me one of those rare grins that just makes the world spin faster. "It's the same with me as with Selwyn. She's still the little one."

"Ooh, she's going to throw a hissy fit when she hears that you've called her your little sister," I said, smirking. He shrugged.

"She won't do a whole lot."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah. Hey, Max?"

"Hmm?"

"We're friends, right?"

"Of course," I said quickly. No need to tell him what Nudge and Iggy forced out of me.

"Okay. Then this is just as a friend." He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. Instantly, I felt a blush creeping up my face. "It's getting dark out. We should go," he said softly. Then he got up and disappeared through the shadows. I stayed there for a little while longer, my hand on the place where he kissed me, waiting for my blush to disappear. Then I smiled to myself and left.

**Anyone ever go on Mni? Mugglenet Interactive? Because we're playing monopoly and we need a larger fan club. ;) **

**And like I said, I am so, so, SO sorry for not updating sooner not to mention how short this chapter was! I feel like such a failure. (cries to herself in self pity) It's hard to balance all these stories along with school, extracurricular activities, and getting a stomach ache for two weeks. (It still hurts!) Not to mention (glares evilly) the real life Dave that's been a giant (insert swear of your choice here).  
**

**By the way, do you guys want frequent, short updates or long, not so frequent updates?**


	4. Reasons to Fear Quidditch

**I lost this for a while when my flash drive went POOF! My lame excuse for not updating…**

I was still curious and confused about what had happened back at the garden. I didn't regret it; why would I? But I didn't get it. I was still thinking about it when I came down for dinner. The rambling of my friends wasn't helping at all.

"…and Yolanda Halley is with Jackson Blank…"

"…and I really don't understand the charms homework. Did you get question…"

"…he's so annoying, isn't he? Professor…"

"…or mint; mint chocolate sound pretty good…"

"Max?" Cissy looked at me, concerned. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Everything. I don't know," I said, stressed. "I'm just…confused, that's all."

"About what?"

"Nothing. Everything. I don't know," I said again, tugging at my hair.

"Really? You seemed stressed."

"Yes. No. I don't know," I muttered. "My mind is filled with a bunch of useful information that needs to be sorted out."

"Like…?"

"Stuff," I said lamely.

"Do you need a psychiatrist?"

"NO."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Bella curiously.

"Nothing," I said. "I'm just a little…off today."

"That's it?"

"Yes."

"Okay," said Bella, sounding unconvinced. It wasn't like I was completely lying to her; I _was_ a bit off today. And here's why:

I possibly might sort of kind of maybe deep, deep, deep down in the very pit of my heart still like Fang. And if I did, then my stupid teenage hormones would take over and then I'd fall frickin' head first in love again with him and then, well, I'd be screwed. And anyone who's been screwed that bad before can tell you that it's usually not a good thing. Unless said person is a screw, which is very unlikely.

And because of all this because I was my father's daughter and I had a heart which was why I broke up with Dylan so he would be safe from my extremely powerful father which led to newly made Slytherin Prefect Fang Ride a.k.a. my ex-boyfriend to ask me about it meaning that some of the ice from when we broke up was melting resulting in him comforting me when I had a freak out about Hunter and Arrow bringing us to the point of close friends that talked to each other meaning a lovely conversation between the two of us in which he kissed me on the cheek, quote, 'just as friends' and because of my stupid teenage hormones from my woman's gift from god and it led to some pointless pondering and thinking and etcetera, etcetera, etcetera resulting in my mind going to overdrive which meant that I would naturally hit my head against the wall several times to relieve some stress which was making me lose brain cells which would explain why I wasn't acting quite normal today.

One sentence. One session of blood loss. Count the periods in that paragraph if you don't believe me. (Ah ha, ha, ha, ha; very punny. Did I ever mention that I hate Christmas puns? Tell me one and Yule be sorry.)

So I think all of this relates back to me being born. Aw, crud. I rather enjoyed being alive.

"…earth is trying to contact Max for the fifty-eighth time. Unfortunately, the connection remains broken still. We are very sorry. If you'd like to try again, please press one. If you'd like to punch Max in the face, please wait for the tone."

"What in the…what do you want, Luce?" I asked.

"Quidditch tryouts are tomorrow."

"Seriously?" I asked, panicked. "I haven't practiced in so long!"

"Which is why I was saying that we should go to the field right now and sneak in some practice before it gets dark," he said irritably, scowling. "But you obviously didn't hear me the first fifty-eight times."

"Okay, okay," I said, shoving some food down my mouth. Halo and Contessa both reached to snatch something out of my hands. I looked at them in surprise. "What?"

"Eating parchment is not part of an average person's diet. Sure, you may be a winged mutation, but we're pretty sure that you don't eat parchment either," they said, both holding on to one side of a milky white letter with a red wax stamp whose symbol I recognized as my father's. Oh, shit. Already? So soon?

"Oh, thanks," I said, wishing that I really had eaten it. Then I wouldn't have had to read its contents. I tucked it away into my robes for later. "Let's go out onto the Quidditch pitch, Luce."

It really was late, but it was still light out, lighter than I had anticipated. I could still see the sun setting in the distance. Luce rummaged through his book bag before retrieving a familiar little box with bottle green velvet decorated generously with gold leaf.

"Hey, isn't that…?"

"Yup. Snitchy Junior. I swiped it from your room back at the manor right before we left for school. I figured that you might need it. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all, Luce. Thanks." I opened the box and popped out the familiar golden snitch that I caught at my first Quidditch match at Hogwarts. It fluttered its wings weakly and I smiled. "Aw, look! It remembers me!" I said, beaming.

"That's because they have flesh memories, you know," he said, chuckling. "Now throw it up in the air, will you? We need to practice."

And so we did. I had really missed diving around on a broomstick, even if I thought it to be much more fun flying without the aid of a common household item that threatened dusty corners everywhere. We flew around, throwing Quaffles and Snitches at each other until it got too dark for Luce to see; I could see fine in the darkness. I _was_ going to cast _Lumos_ but then Luce took my wand and hit me with it to show me what he thought of _that_ idea.

"You think we'll get in again this year?" he asked as he slumped tiredly up the stairs back to the common room while I skipped up them. I shrugged.

"Maybe; there'll be the younger students vying for the spots." Nudge could be on the team, for example.

"True. At least your spot on the team is secured." I looked at him strangely. "Don't you know? Laurence formerly Prewett is the new captain." I gawked.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Who did you think it was?"

"I-I don't know. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, huh?"

"Nope. I mean, you saw it coming," said Luce, shrugging. "He's the oldest person on the team now so it'd seem natural that he's captain."

"So remind me why my spot on the team is secured?" Luce rolled his eyes.

"Okay. So maybe Laurence isn't head over heels in love with you anymore but let's face it; you might as well be his only friend who isn't either blood or marriage related to him."

"Huh?"

"Like Willow-Brook–"

"Willy."

"Willy and CaraLena are his cousins. So are Dante and Adrian, for that matter. Sabrina, Bree, is his sister. And that's about all the friends he has. Not to mention how he isn't really that close to either Adrian or Dante."

"He's a bit of a loner, admittedly," I said. "So?"

"You're pretty much his only friend. All he needs to do is cut you off the team and that brings his total down to zero."

"Really, I don't see why he doesn't have any other friends," I said thoughtfully. "He should have friends. I mean, he's got a super positive attitude and he's always nice to just about everyone. Why is it that he has pretty much, like, no friends?" Luce sighed.

"I could tell you. But you have to promise to not tell a soul."

"So I could tell someone without a soul? Or, like, part of a soul like my dad?"

"Ha ha, very funny, Max. You can never repeat this to anyone. Hell, don't even think about it too much; Angel might hear you."

"Screw her."

"It'd be kind of funny if she was actually listening right now," Luce said thoughtfully.

"Would you just tell me about Laurence and his friendless state already?" I demanded.

"Okay, fine. About a year or two before you came here…it was late in my second year…

'_There's something awfully wrong,' said Laurence with a frown. Willow-Brook, excuse me, Willy just looked up in the sky and smiled._

'_What do you mean, Laurie? It's perfect weather for the Quidditch match!'_

'_Stop calling me Laurie,' he complained. 'It's a girl's name!'_

'_And you aren't?' Willy asked, giggling. CaraLena rolled her eyes while Zohra and Tarlyn were skipping in sync to the Quidditch pitch with them._

'_Stop trying to bite each other's heads off,' she said, grinning from ear to ear. 'I can't believe it! Last game of the season! The final game! And we're in the lead! Do you think we'll win the house cup again?'_

'_Of course,' said Erik, one of Laurence's friends who didn't play Quidditch. 'The team hasn't changed since last year and we've still won every single game; I don't see why the end results would be any different.'_

'_I still say that something's going to go wrong.'_

'_You're such a pessimist,' declared Ian. 'Why would something go wrong? Besides, you don't have a talent for premonitions like your cousin Adrian, right?'_

'_Well, no–'_

'_Exactly. So why worry? Everything will be okay; you'll see.'_

'_Okay. Just be careful out there, okay CaraLena and Willy?'_

'_Sure.'_

'_Whatever,' said CaraLena, brushing him off._

'_Hey, CaraLena, just because you're a teenager now doesn't mean you know everything.'_

'_Well you seem to act like it,' she said, sticking her tongue out. 'Besides, didn't Bree say the exact same thing to you when you and Will turned thirteen?'_

'_Nope,' said Willy, popping the 'p'. 'Bree told that just to Laurence; she actually trusts me, on the other hand.'_

'_Hey!'_

'_She trusts me way more that you, Laurie! You can't deny it!'_

'_I can too! She's my sister!'_

'_She might as well be mine!'_

'_SHUT UP!' yelled Zohra. 'WE ALL KNOW THAT! SO JUST SHUT UP AND TALK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE!'_

'_I second that motion,' said Tarlyn cheerfully. 'Last game of the season. So how about we take all that negative energy and turning it into something positive?'_

'_No.'_

'_No.'_

'_Can I bribe the two of you with chocolate?' asked CaraLena. Laurence, Willy, and Zohra all looked up at her._

'_Chocolate?' asked Zohra eagerly._

'_What kind?' Laurence asked cautiously._

'_I'll make sure it's something you like.'_

'_Last time you said that, you put cockroaches in it,' he said accusingly._

'_You admitted it tasted good until I told you what was in it,' she said, shrugging._

'_I'll make sure it's something you'll like,' said Tarlyn. Laurence and Willy grinned._

'_Okay.'_

'_What? Do you two really trust her more than you trust me?'_

'_Well you _did_ give them cockroaches last time…,' said Zohra._

'_So? They weren't that bad. Lots of fiber.'_

'_Lots of legs,' said Erik, chortling with laughter._

'_Aw, shut up," said Tarlyn. 'You ate it too!'_

'_Oh, shoot! The match starts in five minutes!' exclaimed Laurence. 'Let's go! Now!'_

'_Okay, okay!' Willy ran after her cousin, CaraLena in tow._

'_Let' go find some seats,' said Tarlyn, rolling her eyes and pulling Zohra towards the silver and green stands. The noise from the crowd was deafening. They slipped over to where Adrian, Jaq, and Selwyn were already sitting._

'_Loud, isn't it?' Selwyn shouted once they got close._

'_I know,' Zohra shouted back. They watched as the players flew in and threw the Quaffles around. From up in the air, CaraLena waved at them. The game went smoothly. Slytherin was up by eighty points but Gryffindor had the Quaffle. CaraLena hit a Bludger at James to stop him from scoring. At the last moment, he had thrown it at someone else but the Bludger made impact with his broom, spinning him off course. CaraLena smirked and then watched Laurence block a hoop. Right after that, Laurence spun to face her, a frightened look on his face. She felt something hit her stomach, and then, darkness._

_CaraLena made it out alive. But once word got out about how Laurence knew, people were afraid of him. No one approached him, in fear of ending up the same way as his younger cousin. Other than his family, no one's approached him just to talk since. It's awful…_

I woke up from my nightmare, panting and drenched in sweat. All Luce had told me was how Laurence had predicted that something bad would happen and it did happen. So where the hell did I get a very gory and descriptive nightmare on it?

Unable to fall back asleep again due to either fear of seeing some other gory thing or the fact that Halo's high pitched 'lady snores' were making it hard to relax, (they're like fingernails on a chalkboard, only worse and you can't stop it,) I went to see if CaraLena was awake. It was about two in the morning; she was typically awake at this time of night…morning…whatever you want to call it…

Turns out, I was right. A thin beam of light shown under the door of the dorm which the four…three...girls shared. I knocked on the door like I had done before a month or two ago. Once again, CaraLena opened the door. However, this time, she looked pretty energetic for someone up at two in the morning. Then again, it _was_ Saturday…

"Hi Max!" she said cheerfully.

"Uh…why are you so…?"

"Energetic?" asked a weak voice. I poked my head in the room. Zohra had about fifteen pillows piled up over her head with a little hole to breathe out of. Adrian was sitting cross legged on her bed, doing some sort of meditation or yoga thing.

"Why…?"

"CaraLena discovered some sinful muggle item," cried Zohra. I gasped in surprise. Ak47s, uranium bombs, Russian vodka, drugs; deadly things ran through my mind.

"What is it?" I asked.

"_Coffee_," she wailed pitifully.

"Coffee?" I exclaimed. "Where did you get that?"

"House elves!" squealed CaraLena, who looked like she was about to bounce off the walls. I turned to Zohra.

"Do you want me to give her an antidote?" I asked weakly.

"PLEASE DO!" she yelled, her voice muffled by the pillows. I rushed back into my room and grabbed some strong medicine and a few pills. Then I rushed back to their dorm where Adrian was now trying to place her seeing stones in the right spot without moving any of the ones she had put down due to CaraLena's excessive bouncing.

"CaraLena!" She whipped her head to face me and I tackled her to the ground. I quickly dropped a dose of liquid medicine and two pills into her mouth, covered it, and made her swallow. Two minutes later, she was on the verge of conking out so Zohra, Adrian, and I dragged CaraLena over to her bed. I sighed; none of my questions were going to be answered tonight.

* * *

"Tell Max that we have tryouts so she had better get her lazy butt out of bed or she's going to miss it!" Luce was probably shouting at some little girl to go and get me out of bed. If it was a First year, I was going to have a nice long talk to him about how it's rude to scar little children for life, even if it's for Quidditch. Before I could finish planning out my glorious speech worthy of my father's, Bella yanked the covers off my bed along with my pillow and, ouch, me.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"Queen Max, the great and annoying King Lucius requests of your company," she muttered bitterly.

"What?"

"You heard me. Lucius want you to get out of bed and onto the Quidditch field before you miss tryouts."

"Fine, fine, fine," I grumbled, getting out of bed. After I left an eternally grateful Zohra to her greatly needed sleep, I had returned to my own dorm, gave myself some medicine to knock me out until it was time to wake up and then went to sleep again.

"There you are, Max!" Luce more or less yelled. "Quidditch tryouts are today!"

"I think our entire house knows that there are Quidditch tryouts today, with how loud you've been screaming!" I snapped. "I could hear you from all the way up in my dorm and I was half asleep! I thought you were harassing some innocent little First year or something awful like that!"

"I'd never harass an innocent little First year!" he said, appalled.

"Good."

"The Second years deserve it much more."

"LUCE!" I screeched when some Second years ran away in fear. "This isn't funny!"

"Yes it is," said the twins who were both just coming down the stairs. "Good morning, Max. Good morning, Lucius."

"Good morning, Halo. Good morning, Contessa," said Luce.

"It's been a pretty awful morning if you ask me," I said bitterly. Halo shrugged and Contessa rolled her eyes.

"Quidditch tryouts today, you two," they said as they skipped out the door of the common room. "You don't want to be late."

"Which is exactly what we'll be at the pace you're moving," said Luce to me. "Let's go. Now." He pointed angrily out the door.

"You don't have to get all mad," I said mockingly.

"Just. Go."

"I'll be completely honest," said Laurence. "Not all of you are going to make the team." Behind me, Luce chuckled.

"Twenty eight people trying out and seven spots; who would have ever guessed that some people weren't going to make the team?" he whispered to me. I cracked a smile. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Fang and from the look on his face, I could tell that he had heard what Luce had said.

"So. Keepers can leave right now." No one left. "No Keepers?"

"I think that they know by now that you're a Keeper," said Vladimir. Dracula snickered underneath his breath.

"No? Okay then. I want people who are trying out for Beater here, the people who are trying out for Chaser here, and the people trying out for Seeker here." We all sorted ourselves out, Luce ducking into the crowd of Chasers. I wasn't the only person trying out for Seeker. There were two other people, both of which I had seen before but had never felt the need to talk to. I was pretty sure the taller guy was a Seventh year and the smaller one was a Third year. For whatever reason, the taller guy seemed familiar and I'm not talking about 'I've seen him before' similar. I'm talking about 'there's some memory in my mind connected to someone or something which you remind me about' similar. Then I realized that it was Erik Greengrass, Bethany's twin brother. Still, that didn't take away any of the curious feeling that I had had before.

Strange, huh?

Surprisingly, even though they were by far the youngest, Vladimir and Dracula made the Beaters for another year. Luce, Fang, and Dave also managed to snag a part on the team. And then, it was time for Laurence to judge the Seekers.

The youngest kid, Orion, went first. He wasn't too bad; he caught a good number of golf balls Laurence threw up in the air. He was also very nimble and could practically spin on a dime. I could tell that he had been practicing a lot; he was better than most Seekers his age.

Then I went up. I caught every single golf ball and even managed to dodge a Bludger by jumping off my broom, watching the evil ball sail under me, and then landing with as much grace as possible back on my brook without so much as a ruffle in my hair. Laurence grinned at me proudly; I had passed it with more than a perfect score; I passed it with flying colors, no pun intended.

The last one, Laurence just stared at for a few moments before speaking.

"Why?" The boy looked away.

"Because…I want to join the team."

"That wasn't what I meant, Erik."

"I…I just had to talk. I couldn't stand having that information and not telling anyone. Laurence, you nearly killed your cousin; how could I keep quiet about that?"

"You didn't have to say anything," Laurence said darkly. "You could have just kept your mouth shut about it. It's because of you nearly everyone is scared of me."

"Laurence…I didn't really come here to try out," Erik said at last.

"Then leave," Laurence said frostily. "You're wasting my time."

"But–"

"I said leave," he said in a clipped tone. "Go away. This is my field; I don't want you here to ruin anything else I have managed to gain. Erik left the field with all of our eyes trained on him. Then, right before he entered the castle, he turned around.

"Laurence, I came to say that I'm sorry."

* * *

"After three years, he comes to tell me that he's _sorry_." Laurence was fuming while Willy, CaraLena, and I were sitting with him on the Quidditch field, trying to talk him out of his misery. CaraLena looked like she would have rather been anywhere other than here where she was nearly killed.

"Well, what do you know?" asked Willy. "Maybe he _is_ sorry."

"He's not," Laurence spat bitterly.

"How would you know?" I asked.

"When he and Ian told everyone what happened…" He took a breath. "When they told everyone what had happened, they had become popular. They knew something worth gossiping about. They knew a piece of information worth telling and then they told the whole school. They turned everyone against me. And for what? Popularity."

"You know that they never really meant to make you a scapegoat…," began Willy. Laurence turned on her.

"Are you sure about that, Wills? You were his girlfriend. I think you know how he pulls himself up and pushing other people down." Willy looked away. "He uses people and then tears them down."

I sighed. "You shouldn't think about it too much," I said at last. "It's not good to think about things of unimportance too much." He cracked a weak grin.

"You sound like Feylor."

"Huh. I guess I do."

"Aw, shit!" hissed CaraLena. "Just when I thought that things couldn't get much worse."

"What?" I asked.

"It's Eron!" she whispered back in a rushed tone. "Make a run for it!" And we ran, alright. We ran into the castle, through what must have been fifty corridors and then collapsed to the floor, laughing, when Laurence ran out of stamina to continue running.

**Some reviewers make me smile and grin. Some reviewers give me advice and complements. AND THEN there are the reviewers who really piss me off. I will now glare at anonymous reviewer for making my crappy day crappier. Grrrrrrr**

**No, not you. Just someone else. It's okay...I love you reviewers anyways, in a non awkward way, of course! Please review... Pretty pretty please?  
**


	5. Let's go Kill Killers

"See you, Max," said Willy as she disappeared into her own dorm with a few other Seventh year girls. I waved goodbye to her and kept walking down the corridors with CaraLena, whose dorm was further down the hallway.

"It's great to see Laurence so happy," CaraLena noted cheerfully. "Even if it's just because we're trying to run away from Eron." I wrinkled my nose.

"He hasn't gotten any less annoying in his death," I said bitterly.

"I can't believe how annoying he is," she added.

"He has no life," I said before realizing how correct it was. CaraLena laughed.

"Very true," she said, slipping into her room. "Bye." She stuck her head out a moment later. "Oh, Max."

"What?"

"Meeting of Mutants, tomorrow after lunch at the same place as always, okay?" I nodded and walked on. '_He has no life_.' I laughed to myself.

I slipped out of my robes still chuckling quietly to myself about it when I heard the sound of crackling parchment. My eyes flickered over to the picture of dad and Nagini and they shrugged. I rummaged through my robes until I found the dreaded note. I groaned and flopped onto my bed miserably. Picture-dad just looked at me.

"What? It wasn't me…" he said defensively.

"Yes it was," I said sourly. He gave me an amused look so frighteningly similar to Feylor's that I wouldn't have been able to tell the difference she been a boy.

"What my future self does will not tell you the sort of person I am," he said musically. My father never talked musically in real life. Heck, he even hated most music; it was too 'happy'. Who was he kidding? All the backdrop music in our house sounded melancholic, no matter how you looked at it.

"_That's great_," I literally hissed back.

"_Your sarcasm is so amusing_," picture-Nagini hissed to me with this humorous look on her snaky face. I nearly scoffed at it.

"Shut up," I snapped in normal English. "I'm not amused."

"She can't understand you," said the picture of my little teenage father with his amused little voice that made me want to wring his little neck. Not like I could. Not like I would.

"Whatever," I said bitterly, tearing open the cream colored envelope.

'_Oh don't you remember aunt Veracity? And Ajax and Pollex and Timor? Oh, your dear cousins. They died far too young, I'd say. Happy first kill day…'_

* * *

_As much as I wanted to make father proud, I had to face the fact that I didn't really want someone to die by my hands. I was just a little girl. Killing the people who killed my aunt and cousins? Uh…_

"_It's a bit melodramatic, isn't it?" asked Lionel wistfully. "I mean, it's not like someone your age should have to deal with the murders of murderers." I shrugged glumly._

"_Dad wants me to see Thestrals so murdering murderers it is," I muttered darkly. Why couldn't we have just, oh, I don't know, killed a fly or something? Despicable nuisances, always getting in my food. I could easily live without their bothersome ways._

"_Aren't you cold?" he asked as I tried unsuccessfully to hide yet another shiver. I shook my head defiantly. I couldn't show weakness, not while dad was watching. My first murder viewing. I had hoped for this day ever since father told me about the feeling of power and strength he had from killing those who had done him wrong. The feeling of revenge. Of vengeance. He told me it was the most wonderful feeling ever. To be able to have power over this little weakling._

_I had felt the power rush before and I understood it. Once you had it, you would always want more. It seemed almost natural to feel the excited surge of adrenaline from risking my life. Dangerous, yes, but completely worth it in the end. Besides, there was something satisfying about seeing a weak little body twitch and then fall, unmoving. Plants, as I discovered, weren't nearly as interesting to watch. They just kind of fell over dead. No screaming, no writhing, no excitement. BORING._

_Hunter and Arrow rubbed against my legs and I dug my frozen fingers into their fur coats gratefully. The warmth the radiated from them kept me alive while father discussed the plans with his Death Eaters. Some day, I hoped to have followers as loyal as father's. Or maybe I could rule the Death Eaters with father. That would be pretty nice too._

_After a few words about where he was going, father left, undoubtedly to discover the easiest way to kill them all. I didn't mind; the people of that run down town had taken away the wands of my aunt and her sons before burning them. Had they had their wands, they might have come out alive. But without them…they couldn't do anything._

_I missed aunt Veracity or as I called her, auntie Vera. She was like the mother I never had. And they killed her. How could they? She was always so kind to me, taking care of my cuts and bruises after a hard day of training, making me my favorite buttermilk biscuits from scratch because the house elves couldn't, even reading me bedtime stories and tucking me in at night. She never had to coddle me, the child of the Wizarding world's most notorious killer. But she did, because, in the end, I was also the only child of her dear little sister. Aella._

_Other than for the few months I had been conceived and the month or so following that, I had never really met my mother. To me, she was just a stranger to whom I owed my life. Timor, one of my cousins, had often teased me when I was angry or particularly touchy or attitude problematic, saying that she and my father would be responsible one day for bringing the wrath of Maximum Ride into the world. I smiled at that before remembering how I had thought back then that it would be hard to imagine a world without Timor. A world without Fear._

'So this is what it's like_,' I thought bitterly. A world without him, a world without Fear. How ironic, I thought, that we had to kill the people who killed Fear. But it seemed like the right thing to do. Perhaps they had believe that the only thing to fear was Fear itself. Timor, to me, wasn't dangerous at all. Out of auntie Vera's three children, he was the nicest of them all to me. Unlike me, he would NEVER hurt a fly. He even hated killing lice because lice are, after all, only one letter away from life. It boggled my mind why anyone would want to kill him._

_Hunter and Arrow, suddenly very much awake from the scent of fresh blood scampered off and my two space heaters were gone which wasn't good because my blood started to freeze again. Was this how Hell felt when it froze over? Cold and empty without any of its former warmth? A simple, soulless desert where sorrow blew across the course sand? Was this really it?_

"_Lionel, it's so cold," I whispered softly. A particularly strong gust of cold wind blew by just then and I nearly toppled over. My frail body seemed to want to fly away with the wind. I tried to wrap my tawny eagle-like wings around me but it was so windy that I felt as if they would tear off the moment I completely unfurled them. It seemed to be getting colder and colder by the minute._

"_The Dark Lord should be back by now," he said softly._

"_You mean dad?" I asked, looking up at him._

"_I-yes," he said uncertainly. "Sure. Dad." The idea of calling He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named 'dad' surely didn't appeal to him the same way it did to me. I mean, he _was_ my father._

_I shivered again when yet another wind blew by. "I'm cold," I whispered into the wind, my teeth chattering. Lionel sighed and tucked me under his cloak. I was so small and he was so not so I easily fit. I felt much warmer now that the wintery elements weren't attacking me. Dad returned soon after with his faithful advisors._

"_Lionel," my father hissed. "My daughter?" Lionel nodded._

"_Yes master." He nudged me slightly and I reluctantly came out of the warmth, bracing myself for the cold, bitter winds that would surely turn my blood to ice and my pale flesh into stone. Father frowned at me and I panicked; had I done something wrong?_

"_Are you cold, Max?" he asked._

"_I'm fine," I lied. Another cold wind blew by and I shivered. How could I show weakness in front of him? I could almost see his appalled face at my lack of strength. He, of course, saw through me in an instant._

"_No you're not," he said, draping the cloak he conjured over me. "I am your father, Max. I know what you can stand and what you can't. Now come along."_

"_Can Lionel come too?" I asked quickly. I refused to admit it, but I was scared of what might happen. If something dreadful occurred, I wanted someone I could trust with me. My father would probably be busy and so would his most trusted Death Eaters, the only others I could trust. This conveniently left Lionel to guard me._

"_If you wish," said father uncaringly. Lionel seemed grateful to be able to come with me, grateful for the chance to protect me from what was to come. And then we walked forward, prepared to kill the killers. How unnerving this was, to kill the ones who killed those dear to one's heart. This is what it felt like. Revenge. And it felt good to know that I held the tool I needed to end any one of their pitiful lives in my hands.  
_

* * *

That was enough to scar any child for life. I woke in a cold sweat, crying, tears streaming down my face. I looked around in the dark for some sort of comfort. The only things I could see clearly were the moon shining through the window and it's reflection in Bella's huge, scared eyes.

"Max?" she whispered tentatively. "What's wrong?"

I sighed. "Nothing happened. Just a bad dream, okay?"

"Max," she said, her voice growing stronger. "Something happened. It's more than a bad dream, isn't it? You wouldn't wake up crying if it was just a bad dream. What happened?"

"Nothing," I said firmly, my voice thickly coated in manipulation. "Go back to sleep and when you wake, this conversation never happened. You didn't see me crying." Bella remained unmoving for a moment, her wide, scared eyes staring straight into my soul, before dropping to her pillow as if I had just Avada Kedavra'd her. I might as well have; she wasn't even snoring like she usually was at this time of night. I sighed and left the room to sit by the same window where I had first met CaraLena. Moonlight danced through the window, leaving patches of light against the dark shadows. I just sat there and cried. Just when I thought I'd never have to think about auntie Vera and Timor and the rest of them, all the memories came flooding back. Memories of all the days where we would have picnics and makes little cakes. Memories of when we played together and had fun. We all had fun. We loved each other so. And then auntie Vera wanted to move to that wretched town and out of my life forever.

They never saw me kill my first kill. (Obviously.) They never saw my Hogwarts acceptance letter. They never met Hunter or Arrow. They weren't alive long enough. They didn't deserve to die. It felt like they had been ripped out of my heart again. I was torn inside. It hurt. I hurt. Everything hurt.

"You okay?" I turned to see Adrian's tear streaked face.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said unconvincingly. "You?"

"Same." We sat there in silence until the darkness started to fade and the sun began to come up.

"I had a nightmare," I said at last. Adrian nodded deftly, staring out the window.

"So did I."

"What was it about?" I asked, turning to face her.

"It…nothing," she lied. "It wasn't about anything."

"I dreamt of a memory," I admitted, turning back to the window. "A terrible memory of the first time I killed someone. It was because they killed some people who were dear to me."

Adrian looked uncomfortably. "I didn't really dream," she said. "Not really. I had a vision of the future."

"What happened?" I asked. She looked scared.

"Something awful," she said, looking like she was on the verge of tears. "Something awfully terrible that I don't want to happen. And it's going to happen. Today."

* * *

"Hey, it's the first one of the year!" said Nudge cheerfully from her perch on a window ledge ten feet above us. She reminded me of when Tarlyn was sitting up on a higher ledge before my first Meeting of the Mutants, teasing a stressed out Willy. Angel was flying around, giggling as her brother tried to catch her.

"First Meeting of the Mutants and Willy's already freaking out," noted CaraLena. I laughed in agreement.

"Get off! Get off!" Willy screeched at Nudge. "You're going to get hurt!"

"Why is it that she always seems so uptight when we have these meetings?" asked Iggy, his voice muffled by a lavender pillow

"She's special like that," said Fang. I just stared at him in all his glory. He turned to face me and caught me staring. I quickly turned back to face CaraLena.

"What are we here to talk about anyways?" I asked. She frowned.

"I'm not entirely sure. I think there are some new mutants here. There's a girl in my year, Star, who seemed a bit…inhuman."

"Really?" I asked. More mutants. Did Itex go and go toxic waste shopping or something?

"Yup. And–hey. What's with Zohra?" Zohra ran in, her face paler than I had ever seen before. She looked hysterical and scared and frightened and all of that.

"What on earth…?" I heard Andy say. Adrian also paled considerably and CaraLena just ran over to find out what was going on.

"Zohra! What happened?" she demanded, shaking her frail shoulders. "Answer me! Zo!"

"S-s-s-he's…b-b-b-blood and t-t-t-he…" She was crying hysterically and freaking out.

"Angel!" yelled CaraLena. "Get over here!" The petite little blond more or less dropped from the air, landing a few feet away from them.

"Yeah?"

"What's she thinking that's got her all worked up?" Angel wrinkled her nose, sifting through Zohra's jumbled up thoughts. Suddenly, she gasped.

"No!"

"'No' what?" asked Concussion.

"That can't be true! No. No! NO!"

"What's going on?" asked Anna fearfully, her eyes wide and scared.

"She can't be! That's impossible!" Angel was screaming.

"Who's 'she'?" I asked desperately. "What happened?"

"I-i-i-it was all-l-l b-b-bl-bloody an-and t-t-the-then I s-s-s-saw her an-and…" Zohra burst into tears again, still in hysterics.

"Will someone just tell us what's going on!" I demanded. Angel turned to me sorrowfully.

"It's Halo. Halo Gibbons."

"What about her?" asked Nudge.

"She…"

"Yes?" asked CaraLena. Angel closed her eyes in anguish. A tear escaped from under her tightly closed lids.

"She's been murdered."

* * *

"I can't believe it," Contessa whispered, barely lifting her face from her hands. Her breakfast remained untouched. It looked like she hadn't slept in days. (Not like I had slept much; between the death of Halo and moving to a new dorm room, I lacked the need to sleep.) There were bags under her eyes and her hair was messier than Bella's. There wasn't a single neatly made red curl on her head. Her skin became paler as did her lips. Her eyes were lifeless. No doubt she was taking this harder than anyone else.

"Oh, Tessa," said Bella softly and hugged her. "I know. I know. I can't believe she's gone either."

Ever since Zohra discovered Halo's dead body lying in our dorm room, we had become sorrowful and lifeless. Even the Gryffies seemed to acknowledge her passing. No one knew who killed her and Tessa was getting sadder by the minute. Jaq…was taking it harshly. It seemed as if the world was out to get him. First Tarlyn…then Halo; I didn't know how much more he could stand before breaking. He already broke once before and it wouldn't have surprised me if he tried dying again.

"Orin? Orin, come on, dude. It's gonna be okay." Jay was trying to shake his best friend out of his misery. "Orin…"

"Don't tell me it's going to be okay," Orin snapped back. "She's gone…she's gone…I never got the chance to tell her good bye." He gripped the side of the table, trying to control himself. "I never got the chance to tell her I love her."

As much as I was mourning, I couldn't help but ponder over the unknown cause of Halo Gibbon's death. Other than the fact that she was a Slytherin, she was a perfectly good girl. Straight E student with the occasional O on everything. She never tried to be rude to people and she was always so happy and cheerful and polite. She was calm and understanding, the water that quenched, unlike her sister, who had a fiery temper to challenge her hair. So why did they kill her?

Who had the motive to kill her? Other than Lissa and Brigid, she had no enemies. Then again, those two girls were everyone's enemy and neither had the guts to kill someone up so high in the race for popularity. Halo was a Slytherin Princess for crying out loud! With one bitter word, she could turn the school against pretty much anyone she wanted! She had power…

"Max?" asked Bella in surprise as I suddenly stood up.

"I need to go check something out in out room."

"What is there to look at?" she asked. "There are just our clothes and the necessities."

"No. Our old dorm room." Contessa's head shot up.

"No!" she snapped. "Don't you dare open that door, Maximum Ride!"

"Why not?" I demanded.

"You can't!" she wailed. "How could you? My sister was killed there!"

"I know," I said quietly. "I want to see who did it."

"Huh?" she asked, momentarily calm.

"I want to see if her murderer left anything behind." Contessa nodded in understanding while Bella comforted her. I had just stepped out of the Great Hall when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"What?" I asked.

"Let me come with you," said Fang softly.

"Why?" He sighed.

"I want to know what happened, too." I reluctantly let him tag along as I made my way to the Slytherin common rooms and then up the stairs to the girl's dormitories with Fang scaling the walls, careful not to touch the steps for fear of them turning into a slide resulting in my falling down. Eventually, we made it to the room I had once shared with Bella and the twins.

"You seem scared," he said after five solid minutes of me just staring at the door.

"It's like Contessa said. This is where Halo was murdered," I said wistfully. He sighed and reached over to open the door, nudging it so it lay slightly ajar.

"You have to open it all the way," he said quietly. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I had seen murder scenes before so why was I so afraid now? Eyes still closed, I pushed the door open.

The smell of blood hit me before anything else. All around this familiar room, dried, caked blood coated everything. It was on the floor, it was on the walls, it was all over our beds; everything. The only things that had been changed since Zohra found Halo dead were that our trunks had been removed so that we could have our belonging and Halo's body had been shipped home. I cautiously stepped into the room. Fang followed behind me, not making a single noise. Other than the fact that things had been shoved around and some of our glass baubles had been broken, nothing seemed to be out of place. Except for the blood and the unpleasant odor, everything in here belonged. We were about to leave when a piece of parchment caught my eye. Frowning, I picked it up.

"What does it say?" Fang inquired as I unfolded it. I read it, confused and scared.

'_One down and so many more to go. Who's next?'_

* * *

**I actually updated. Woohoo. Yippie. What fun. I have so many excuses for not updating, though. I'm just not going to tell them to you. I'm only updating because it's Spring Break...**

**(Sorry for the multiple notices; I had to fix something.)  
**


	6. Die, royals, die!

**Is anyone genuinely curious as to why I've updated? It's because my life has returned to normal, good thing or not. Actually, in all honestly, I'm on the way to Michigan to go camping; 7 hr drive with nothing better to do but type and watch, you guessed it, Harry Potter. O.o  
**

**Playlist while writing:  
The Show Goes On- Lupe Fiasco  
Over You- Daughtry  
Remembering Sunday- All Time Low**

"Are you okay?" I heard Fang's scared and concerned voice and I blinked awake. My head throbbed and I felt like a mess. "You fainted."

"Seriously?" I muttered groggily. Father was never going to let me hear the end of this. I could imagine it now. _'I absolutely cannot believe you, Maximum Ride! Fainting because of a piece of parchment. Plain old parchment! It was not even enchanted or anything!'_

Fang nodded. "Do you want to go back to breakfast or–"

"No," I interrupted. "I don't want them to see me like this." My robes had a long cut from when I fell and my skirt was crumpled and riding up my leg. I quickly smoothed it down and got up, instantly regretting it; I got dizzy and started swaying. Fang caught me as I went down.

"Slow down there, Max," he said, helping me out the door. "We don't need you to faint again." I nodded meekly. Once outside the room, he let me sit down on the green and silver carpeted flooring to catch my breath and regain my thoughts. There were a few things bothering me now that I had seen just exactly where Halo had been killed. Firstly, judging by the bloody mess, she probably didn't die the swift, painless death she deserved.

"Who would do something like this?" I whispered softly. "She didn't deserve this." Fang frowned.

"When you think about it, Max, there are actually quite a few people who would benefit from her death. Think about it."

"Huh?" I looked up at him in surprise even though I actually wasn't surprised in the slightest. Ever since my father had come out of Slytherin as the most notorious killer of all times, anyone sorted into our house was…hated, to say the least. Other than some select few, like Tarlyn's French friends, Lily, all the mutants, and Sicily, the latter being more of a temporary ally than a friend, we were utterly despised and while many scoffed and looked as us as if we were scum on the bottom of their feet, truth be told, they feared us. And what better way to harm us than to slowly kill us off, starting with a Slytherin Princess? It seemed so simple; I almost laughed. Take out Voldemort's future supporters one by one. Without any supporters, he would be nothing. And that meant that we were vulnerable to all sorts of danger. And…and…

"Max!" he whisper-yelled as I toppled over, my face even paler, if possible, that it was before. "Max! Are you okay?"

"Yes. No. Oh my goodness, Fang!" I turned to him, gripping his forearm so hard that he actually winced.

"What is it?"

"They're going to kill us off! They're going to kill us all off!"

"What? Who?"

"I don't know who!" I said hysterically. "But they're going to kill us all off!" I repeated.

"They're going to kill who off?"

"The Slytherin royalties," I whispered.

The idea of some external force trying to kill of all the Slytherin royalties, all of us _schoolchildren_, seemed absolutely ludicrous to some while others, surprisingly, deemed it to be quite plausible.

"It's not that impossible, once you think about it," said Cissy thoughtfully. Bella was nodding in silent agreement. "I mean, we, as in, our parents, are constantly at war with the ministry as well as pretty much every mudblood and their supporters in the world. Of course, at least _one_ of them must be pissed enough to try to get revenge. It would make sense that they'd try and take out the weakest of the leaders." Bella winced at the word 'weakest.' "What? I'm a Princess too. At least we're leaders. And if you wanted power so badly, why did you give up your position as Queen?"

"Too much work," said Bella disdainfully. "Having to look perfect all the time, constantly having the best grades in every class, always being surrounded by faithful followers, not a moment of privacy…" Bella shuddered. "It wasn't worth the power."

"Oh, stop whining, Bella," said Luce, scoffing. He turned to Cissy. "It's not that bad at all. Don't listen to your sister." Cissy was a possible candidate for the next Queen of her year and was slowly learning the ropes from Luce since I was too busy with everything I had to deal with for father and her sister absolutely refused to under any circumstances.

"Narcissa Black!" Cissy jumped about two feet in the air. Slughorn was standing outside of his classroom, glaring angrily at her. "You're late! As a possible future Queen of Slytherin, you should be setting a better example for your fellow classmates! And you three!" he said, now turning his attention to Luce, Bella, and I. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

"We have a free period," explained Bella.

"Well, there's a paper due in class tomorrow about Amortentia that the three of you should be working on during your free period."

"We finished it already," Luce replied cheerfully. Slughorn smiled then.

"Of course you did. I wouldn't expect anything less from you royals. Run along then. I've got a class to teach." He glared at Cissy. "Well, missy? What have you got to say for yourself?"

"We're really sorry," I interrupted. "We had to borrow her for something." He nodded.

"Oh, well that's fine then. Come in when you're ready, Narcissa." He turned around and walked back into class. Cissy looked up at us gratefully.

"Thanks guys."

"Not a problem," I said, ruffling her hair. "Now you better go now or else he'll have our heads." As she ducked her head into the classroom, Luce laughed.

"Maximum Ride, ol' Sluggie absolutely adores you; he'd never have your head."

"Ah, what Cissy doesn't know won't hurt her," I replied.

"Ah, lovely," said Selwyn sarcastically when I told him about my hunch about Halo's murder. "Like I didn't have enough to worry about." CaraLena and Zohra paled considerably and Adrian made a small sound of protest. Dave seemed mildly irritated while Jaq stayed as unmoved and emotionless as ever. If I didn't know better, I would have guessed that he was in some way related to Feylor.

"You don't suppose they'll start invading the castle or something, do you?" asked Zohra. I shook my head.

"I'm guessing that they'll be slowly killing us off, one by one," I said thoughtfully.

"How much longer do you think we have to live?" Dave asked quietly.

"Until you die. Actually," I added after seeing his annoyed face, "you won't be killed by these people if I have any say about it." I mentally scolded myself; it was a promise I couldn't keep. I forgot, sometimes, that while yes, I was my father's daughter, I was not invincible, nor was I any sort of god or deity.

"What about family members?" demanded CaraLena. Adrian turned to her, surprised at the notion. Well, they _were_ related after all. I simply shrugged.

"Who knows? I sure hope not though."

"And Tarlyn?" asked Selwyn at last. The three girls turned to me, eagerly awaiting an answer; Dave and even Jaq looked curious and interested in what I would say. "She used to be a Queen, remember?"

"I get the feeling that they'd want her dead too. I mean, I know she's not quite here at Hogwarts anymore but…you can't deny that she has people who look up to her and who will follow her like some follow my father." Selwyn nodded and slumped back in his seat, looking defeated. CaraLena and Zohra both seemed disappointed while Adrian looked…sorrowful. Jaq on the other hand had a fierce look on his faces and seemed thoroughly pissed at whoever was trying to kill us off. I wasn't the only one who noticed.

"Whoa…if I was Willy, I'd comment on how black your aura just turned, Jaq," said CaraLena in surprise. "What's got you so worked up?"

"We're talking about potential death threats directed towards us, CaraLena," said Zohra, annoyed. "Anyone would be worked up."

"Yeah, but just look at him," CaraLena muttered. Jaq's already piercing icy blue eyes seemed sharper than ever before and I seemed to get the feeling that he'd do pretty much anything except harming a portion of us Slythies, half his family, and his Tarlyn so he could protect her. Yeah, he totally doesn't care about her or anything crazy like that. And he doesn't want any news on her wellbeing either as well. Pfft. What are you talking about?

"He still loves her," I whispered softly to Selwyn. He smirked.

"I know," he whispered back.

"Hello, Max-chan," said a musical, emotionless voice. There was only one Japanese obsessed ghost at Hogwarts as far as I knew.

"Hi Feylor."

"Are you well?"

"Honestly? How could I be? I mean, with everything going on…"

"I will admit; it was a fairly stupid question. I said it mostly out of instinctive politeness."

"Yeah, well, I'm not 'well' or 'fine' or anything along the lines or better than 'okay.'"

"Bitter, are we?" she asked, an amused lilt in her voice.

"Only a bit."

"You know," she said, turning away from me and drifting along at the same pace at which I was walking, "when I was alive, I too was a Queen."

"Oh really?" I asked, raising one of my thin eyebrows, skeptical.

"Yes, I was. And, if I might say, I was a seemingly rather fine one too."

"A bit vain, are we?"

"Oh, perhaps," she said, waving it off with a flutter of her thin, translucent fingers. "It was around that time that a very close friend of mine, almost like a sister, one of the royals, was murdered over Easter break by a basilisk. It was particularly saddening for me, as her parents had invited me to come with them but I had turned down their offer for I had wanted to spend more time with a handsome fellow in Tom's year who was a close friend of my brother. Seeing as I am, as you may already know, fluent in Parseltongue, I could have stopped the basilisk. But alas," she said with a sigh, "I was not there. I still regret it."

"It's a sad story, but what does that have to do with anything?" I asked.

She didn't quite answer but continued with her story. "After her death, I had to continue on with a happy face; I was the Queen of my year, after all. I never let anyone in on my sadness and when someone else brought it up, I would quickly move to another subject. I never had the chance to talk about it. It did not do me any good in the end, when I allowed my brother, your father, to use me as an experiment for his quest for horcruxes, because I was too saddened by life to try to keep myself alive. Ironically," she said, with a humorless laugh, "I chose to remain on this world as a ghost instead of moving on. It was because I was too ashamed to see my friend again. And I'm sure no one who made an attempt to create a horcrux ever ended up in Heaven or whatever glorious place there is after death. Now Max, I believe that you need to talk to someone you trust or else you will surely perish in the end."

Feylor's words bothered me for the rest of that week so much to the point that I was thinking about it most of the time. Unfortunately, that meant that I wasn't thinking when I walked, resulting in my near stumble over the staircases nine times.

"Whoa there," said Fang, as he yanked my arm as I almost walked onto a platform that didn't exist. "This must be the tenth time or something, Maximum Ride."

"Yeah, sorry," I mumbled. "I'm just lost in thought."

"I swear, you're going to get yourself killed like that," he said, shaking his head. I winced. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean it like that!" Ever since I figured out just why people were trying to kill us, I flinched at the idea of my being dead. Everyone knew not to joke about it around me, but sometimes people slipped.

"It's alright," I said, waving it off. I paused for a moment on the platform the stairs turned to while he walked on ahead. Suddenly, I reached out to grab his arm.

"Hmm?" My mind raced. I was going to ask him if I could talk to him about everything going on. And yet…there was a tiny part of me which made me distrust him for some reason. I couldn't quite understand why, but that was how I felt.

"Uh, thanks for catching me," I said lamely. He looked somewhat pleased yet confused.

"You're welcome. Anytime, Max."

"Why won't you trust him?" asked an emotionless musical voice from behind the moment he was out of mutated earshot.

"What the–?"

"Just a completely random guess, of course," she said quickly, before disappearing through a wall. I swear, if I had never known Eron, she'd be the most annoying ghost I'd ever met.

I walked on quietly to the Great Hall for lunch, slipping beside Luce at the Slytherin table. Some of the Sixth years were buzzing excitedly about something.

"Hey, what's going on?" Bella asked no one in particular. Cissy shrugged.

"They've been like this all day," said Luce in a bored voice, rapping his fingers in a slow, rhythmic tempo on the wood table. "And all they ever say when I ask is 'You'll see.' It's like they think we're just little kids or something."

"They _are_ about a year older that you guys," said Cissy thoughtfully. "And two years older than me."

"The point is," said Sev, "they're not telling us until 'it's time.'"

"Aw, great," I muttered. "I'm feeling a bit impatient today. I'm going to go find out what they're up to." I walked into the midst of Sixth years that were bustling around and chattering about something I couldn't quite figure out. Eventually, I found the royals.

"'lo Max," said Selwyn brightly.

"Hi Selwyn. What on earth are you guys so cheerful about?"

"Oh. Uhm…"

"Well, you're a Queen so I guess you can know," said Dave. "Why not?"

"Will you just tell me what it is?" The royals all grinned.

"We, as in the Sixth and Seventh years, get to help set up for the Halloween Ball. It's like we're almost planning it!"

"Oh really?" I inquired, raising an arched brow. CaraLena and Zohra seemed to deflate a bit.

"Aw, go show some fake enthusiasm," said CaraLena. "C'mon, Max! I know you can do it! C'mon! Act cheerful!" I shrugged.

"You guys seem to be making a really big deal out of it," I said calmly.

"We're just all really excited about it," said Dave with an ecstatic look on his face. Truth be told, he was kind of scaring me…

"Alright then, peeps," I said, walking away.

"Hey, wait," called Zohra. "You can't tell anyone, 'kay?"

"Sure, whatever." Halloween Ball, hmm? I sure hoped that they'd be tightening up security this year; we didn't need another Effie.

"Aww, why won't you tell us?" whined Bella and Cissy.

"Because they told me not to," I said, turning my attention back to my Charms homework. Ah, the days when Fang and I would work on it together. I kind of missed them but at the same time, this meant that his presence wasn't reminding me of all the memories we had made together… It was painful and I wasn't entirely sure it was worth it. Ah well.

"We won't tell anyone! Promise!"

"I promised them I wouldn't tell anyone too," I said, lifting my eyes to glare at them.

"They won't find out," said Bella.

"Besides," added Cissy, "what they don't know won't hurt them." Ooh, aah, painful memory of Fang. (See chapter 7 of the prequel.)

"I'm not telling you guys and that's final," I said firmly. I turned to Luce. "When's our next Quidditch practice?"

"Tomorrow," he said weakly. "It's times like these when I wish that I was a genetic abnormality like you." I didn't blame him. Between Laurence's insane Quidditch practices and the O.W.L level homework we had to do, one would have to be a genetic abnormality to function properly.

Speaking of genetic abnormalities on Quidditch teams, I still wasn't sure what to do about Fang. Yes, he was my best friend once upon a long time ago, but I wasn't really sure what he was now. I still, though if someone ever asked, I'd never admit it, loved him and hoped that maybe he loved me as much as I had imagined he did back when we were together. It was all so confusing. And even if I had the chance, I wasn't sure if I wanted him back anymore, which totally boggled my mind. I mean, what sane teenage girl loves a guy but won't be with him? Seriously. It'd be a dream come true for most girls my age. I practically had my immature, childish dream delivered to me on a silver platter and I still wasn't taking it. Why? Too much pride? No, that'd make me like James Potter and while yes, Lily was absolutely in love with him, I just hated him. Period. This. Was. So. Freaking. Complicated.

But hey, since when was my life simple?

**Ugh. There. I updated. XP In the meantime, go to Mugglenet Interactive and amuse me; I'm bored.**


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